Extinguishing the Light
by Tw15teD
Summary: Sequel to "Time, Mr. Potter?" - Harry is trying to live his life as normally as any Time-Traveller can. It's just unfortunate that his enemies really, really would prefer he didn't live at all. Non DH compliant. Slow Updates, unfortunately.
1. Prologue

**A/N: Here we go again. I've had this rattling around in my head for a while, and I had to put it to paper (or keyboard). Hopefully those who enjoyed the previous tale will enjoy this one, and hopefully I won't ruin any happy memories of my last fic by continuing the story.**

**I'm currently at University, but have found myself with a lot of free time...**

**Without further ado, I present to you:**

'**Extinguishing the Light', the sequel to 'Time, Mr. Potter?'**

"_Life is but a parting dream, but the death that follows is eternal"_

**Prologue – The Tomb**

_Rathenow, the District of Havelland, Brandenburg, Germany_

_Approximately two years, six months after the Fall of Voldemort_

It was raining.

Rain like this didn't happen often; perhaps once a year. A cloudburst so intense that it reduced anyone outside to essentially breathing water, and ruined anything not completely waterproof. Animals fled for cover, people shut their doors and huddled around their heating. No Muggles drove anywhere, and any aircraft made sure to fly well above the ugly black storm clouds that had gathered over the small German town of Rathenow.

Rathenow was a town which was not particularly famous in of itself – it had the Protestant church of St-Marien-Andreas, and the Catholic Church of St. George as vaguely effective tourist attractions, but it boasted a meagre population of just over twenty thousand, and was hardly the place for drama or subterfuge.

However, students of Muggle history could find out something dark about this town – it was very near here, in the surrounding German countryside, that the remains of Adolf Hitler and Josef Goebbels were buried, until they were exhumed in 1970. This gave the town a relatively morbid place in the history books.

What even fewer people knew, perhaps a handful, and all purely Magical scholars, was that someone else was buried near Rathenow, and that person's remains were, as far as anyone knew, still there.

XxXx

The figure stole through the night, cursing and spitting as the endless rain slammed onto his head, drumming on his waterproof hood and rendering him barely able to see. It was midnight – a time for foul deeds.

The figure was staggering across a field, currently lying fallow, approximately two miles from Rathenow. The farmer who owned the field was holed up in his cottage, along with his family and their dogs, away from the blasted storm. No one knew the figure was there, what his purpose was, or what he was capable of.

The figure hopped over a dry stone wall, pausing to consult a worn map, which was apparently completely waterproof (unusual, seeing as it was old parchment). Holding it up to try and see in the dark, he finally cursed again and fished a small wooden stick out of his pocket, muttering something inaudible in the howling wind and rain of the storm. A small light appeared at the end of the stick, and the figure – a man in his late thirties – scrutinised it, before coming to a decision and continuing across another field, this one a mass of mud, once neatly ploughed but now ruined by the storm.

After several more minutes of walking, keeping his head down and the hood of his black cloak up against the storm, he reached a small copse of deciduous trees at the edge of the field – several dozen of them, sticking out like a sore thumb in comparison to the surrounding flat farmland, the outermost plants bent heavily in the gale. Glancing about him, the figure entered the small grove.

Curiously, as soon as he passed the outermost trees, the noise of the rain stopped, and the air heated up to a pleasant room temperature. Tentatively, the figure threw his sodden hood back and shook his head like a wet dog, spraying water everywhere. He had a relatively boyish face, with wild staring eyes and a rather hungry look about him, with straw-like blond hair currently plastered to his soaked head.

Walking past one or two more trees, he knelt and tapped his wooden stick on the leaf-strewn ground, muttering some more words, seemingly random Latin phrases. The stick flashed a bright emerald green, and the sound of breaking glass echoed around the random grove of trees, before the figure nodded in satisfaction and continued on.

Finally he reached the centre of this small copse - a very small clearing, enough for three or four people to stand together, the floor encrusted with completely dry leaf litter, despite the raging storm surrounding the trees. With a muttered word and a wave of his hand, the figure swept the leaves and dirt aside, revealing a small hatch in the ground. The hatch was made of what looked like rather old iron, with a circular handle like a submarine hatch, and was festooned with various runes and other ancient inscriptions. It looked like it concealed an opening which a man could just about fit into.

The figure paused, considering the runes, before gingerly tapping the top of the hatch with his stick, where the circular handle was, and swiftly backing up, scattering leaves with his water-saturated cloak. There was a flash of light, the smell of toasted almonds, and a jagged white bolt of lightning shot out of the centre of the handle to strike the spot where the man had stood a moment before. The runes and inscriptions glowed an ominous red, before fading back to normal.

The man rubbed his chin with his free hand, before somehow drying his robes with a wave of the stick in his hand, and reaching into the robes to pull out a small phial of amber liquid.

Flicking the cork from the phial, he knocked back the potion, before moving forward and seizing the circular handle with his free hand, turning it with apparently inhuman strength, and taking another white lightning bolt to the chest, with apparently no ill effects bar a smouldering hole in his robes.

With a squeal of rusted metal, the handle turned, and the hatch popped open, with the runes on the top apparently disarming. The figure sighed in relief, shaking his head slightly as the effects of the potion wore off.

The hatch had opened to reveal a dark circular pit, with a ladder leading downwards into the dark. Without a second thought, the figure swiftly descended the ladder...

XxXx

_Twenty minutes later_

The figure burst into the final chamber in this hellish complex, turning to fire a bolt of blue fire from his wand as he dived to the concrete floor, his robes burnt and a large cut on his right arm. The hem of his black robes was in tatters, and he winced as he got to his feet, grasping his hip in pain.

He muttered to himself as he kicked the metal door to the chamber shut. He had been running through a warren of tunnels underground, since descending through the hatch. He'd had to fight off crude animated golems, shaped like men and animals, and deal with a fair few traps.

His Master had trained him well, however. He had dealt with them all with ease, despite receiving a wound or two.

And it was now time for him to fulfil the final order his Master had given him before his death.

Turning, the greed and glee plainly visible on his face, the man surveyed the chamber he was now in. A relatively small place – perhaps twenty feet by thirty feet – with a low vaulted ceiling, with the walls made of smooth, unblemished concrete. It was well built, and didn't seem to have accumulated any grime or dirt despite it being more than five decades since it was constructed. It was lit by a single naked bulb hanging from the centre of the curved roof – unusual, seeing as any normal bulb would have burnt out long ago.

At the end of the room, where the man was looking, was a sarcophagus. Approximately seven feet long, it was placed on a long pedestal, also made of drab grey concrete. The coffin itself was made of a different material – it looked like some sort of low-quality marble. The man approached the sarcophagus, holding his breath, wand stuck out in front of him, a spell on his lips.

The top of the coffin had two letters inscribed upon it in bold, deeply carved writing. When he saw them, the man smiled – he had been right.

Now he could potentially get his revenge on those who had wronged his Master.

As he looked down at the letters "G.G.", he felt a rush of exhilaration.

It could now begin.

**A/N: Reliable Beta desired.**


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: Chapter One, folks. So what has Harry been up to? Read, enjoy, and review!**

"_To die would be an awfully big adventure."_

**Chapter One – Passing the Time, Paying the Bills, Living Your Life**

_City of Los Angeles, California, United States of America_

_Approximately two years, seventh months after the Fall of Voldemort_

"Fuck, _fuck_," the thief swore, as he ducked down another ratty alleyway, sprinting as fast as he could through the urban sprawl. He was in a downtrodden area of South Central LA – a maze of in-fill housing estates, populated by Muggles he would rather never have to meet.

How could it all have gone so wrong?

It was supposed to have been simple – meet his contact roughly a mile from his current location in a disused parking lot behind an abandoned cinema, pick up the staff, Apparate out. Instead, as soon as his contact handed over the staff, the contact had been hit with a Paralysing curse and Walter, the man now running for his life, had been slammed with an Anti-Apparition jinx, and a bloody strong one at that.

All Walter had seen was a man dressed all in white, with a featureless black mask on his face, before he'd sprinted out of the parking lot and into the mess of estates and government housing projects he now found himself in.

It was midnight, and the alleyway was barely lit. In this situation he probably had to worry about running into some rough Muggles more than whichever madman was chasing him.

"_Lumos_," Walter muttered, his blackwood wand lighting up his faded and ripped jeans, as well as the alleyway. In his other hand he grasped the staff – a five foot long package wrapped up to look like a painting.

The staff was a powerful artefact from China, and was rumoured to be able to make people without the natural born Animagus ability manifest it. To the right person, it was worth hundreds of thousands of Galleons – Walter was simply a fence for the item now that it had been smuggled from its normal place under the lock and key of the Chinese Ministry of Magic, who had kept it a secret for fear of being inundated with requests to activate Animagus abilities. It had been en route to the United Kingdom for research purposes, on special request, when it had been stolen.

Walter froze in the middle of the long alley he was in – there was a dumpster ahead of him, and the alley terminated in a chain link fence – on the other side was the parking lot of a diner, and a road was visible. To his left was the wall of a grimy liquor store, to his right the wall of a tired-looking convenience shop.

He whirled around, pointing his wand out in front of him, back the way he had come. Nothing. The alleyway was as silent as the grave – the white garbed assailant seemed to have stopped his relentless pursuit.

Breathing heavily, Walter then turned back, with the aim of hopping over the chain link fence and perhaps summoning the Magical Met – the LA equivalent of London's Knight Bus – and going somewhere random before removing the Anti-Apparition jinx and properly fleeing.

He didn't get far. At the end of the alleyway, in front of the chain link fence which promised safety and freedom, was the man in white.

"Good evening," the man said, in a British accent. He looked composed, and in his hand was a wand. His black mask gave nothing away.

"What the hell do you want from me?" Walter said, slightly hysterical, taking a few steps back. He clutched the staff close to his chest, trying not to fall over in the rubbish-strewn alleyway. He was a small man, perhaps five foot five, with long brown hair and an unkempt beard; if anything he was the closest approximation to a tramp you could hope to find. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck; this stranger looked far too composed.

The mysterious man sighed, pointing with his free hand towards the staff's package.

"I'd say it was pretty obvious what I want, don't you? No one necessarily has to get hurt if you just hand that over."

"Fuck you, buddy. What are you, LA DMLE? You haven't got the guts to take on someone like me," Walter blustered, waving his wand threateningly. He slowly began to back up, hoping he might be able to make a break for it out the way he had come. He didn't get more than five steps before the man in white sighed, and raised his wand faster than the eye could see.

"_Reikus_," he said, rather lazily. A jet of teal light shot out of the end of his wand, bypassing Walter's hastily erected Shield Charm, and struck the thief in the arm. Immediately he collapsed as though he was a rag doll, all sensations in his limbs and body completely gone.

"Synaptic severing curse – not bad for subduing people, eh?" the man in white said, conversationally, as he strode over, picking his way past various bits of detritus, and around the dirty green dumpster. Walter glared up at him with hatred, trying to force his non-responsive limbs into movement. It was as though he had the world's worst case of pins and needles, without being able to move.

"Don't worry, 'buddy', you'll be fixed up when I take you into custody." The man said, leaning over Walter. His face was covered in a featureless black mask, with his messy black hair all that could be seen. He plucked the staff package from Walter's numb left arm, and took a small silver marble from the pocket of his white robes, dropping it on Walter's chest.

"See you around. _Justice_," he said, mockingly, activating the Portkey and sending Walter spinning away.

Harry Potter tossed the staff package deftly into the air with a sigh of triumph. Tracking down the fucking thing had been hard enough, and he had been worried he'd miss the exchange.

Now he just needed to pop back to the parking lot he'd chased the felon from, and Portkey the other one back.

He sighed as he double checked the package for traps. What he was doing was a far cry from his old life of being on the run from Death Eaters with Ron and Hermione, and then being the Phoenix, and then _dead_, but it paid the bills well enough.

XxXx

_Minister's Office, Ministry of Magic_

"So you got it, then?" Scrimgeour asked, gesturing for Harry to take a seat. Harry nodded, sitting down and taking the offered glass of water.

"Was a cinch. One thief, poorly trained. Looks like he was the courier for it – he probably would have Apparated straight to the man in charge if I hadn't intercepted him." Harry took a sip of the drink, still dressed in the white robes he had been only hours before. He'd dropped off the staff anonymously in the Department of Mysteries, before reporting to Scrimgeour.

Harry had promised himself he would try to reintegrate into the world following Voldemort's defeat over two years previously. This had proved to be harder than he imagined; the rumours flying round in the aftermath, the suspicions, the conspiracies... he had felt it was easier to lay low. The Weasleys, Snape, McGonagall, Hermione, Sirius, Lupin and others knew of him, what he had done, and what he had been through, but it was a select group. The Aurors and students who had witnessed him fighting in the Battle for Hogwarts had either been Obliviated or... persuaded that pursuing that course of investigation was not the best idea. The only person who had caused trouble about it was Bartemius Crouch Sr., whom Scrimgeour had regretfully Memory Charmed.

In short, he was officially dead. Tortured and murdered by Voldemort, a casualty of war who had had a potions accident which had aged him, before being kidnapped at Hogsmeade. There had been a ceremony which he had attended, incognito; it had been pretty damn touching. The Boy-Who-Lived now lived no longer.

As for the Phoenix... the official story was that it was he who had killed Voldemort, and faked his own death at Diagon Alley. The Ministry released a convincing report that the Phoenix had been a rogue Unspeakable, working on Necromantic magic, and had been corrupted and driven insane, gaining great abilities as a corollary for losing his mind – he hunted down Voldemort and his supporters because of a fixation which the Ministry claimed to not understand. They had told the _Prophet_ they "found" his body after the Battle for Hogwarts, having burned himself out through magical trauma and strain.

The vast majority of people bought this story, of course, if only for peace of mind now that Voldemort was dead. Harry frankly found it ridiculous, and it seemed a lot of people did too. Everywhere, even now, two years on, there were whispers... whispers that connected Harry with the Phoenix, and Voldemort's death with Harry. Officially dismissed, but a powerful undercurrent of conspiracy. Another reason for Harry to stay under wraps; he was sick of being the Chosen One, the Boy-Who-Lived. This way he could do basically what he wanted.

And he had been. Officially he was unemployed, living in a cottage in Godric's Hollow, purchased anonymously, and up the road from his parents' ruined old house. Unofficially he worked as a sort of dirty operations man for the Ministry, reporting only to Scrimgeour. He was paid a pretty penny, got to go to lots of different places, and work off some of the nervous energy he had pent up in his time of relative isolation. He had spent it training, and, oddly enough, researching. His primary field of interest was spellcraft, more specifically magical animation.

Hermione had almost fainted with delight when she discovered Harry had found an academic passion. He was no scholar, but he was good at the practical side of spellcrafting, and it was a good way to pass the time.

Otherwise, him and Sirius often went on "Muggle nights" out into various cities, often ending up more inebriated than Hagrid on a bad day, and having the time of their lives.

"So," Scrimgeour continued, jerking Harry out of his introspection, "I've sent your payment to the usual place" – a vault under a false name – "and I suppose I'll contact you again when we need another job doing. Thanks again, Harry, it would have been embarrassing if the Chinese had realised we'd lost the bloody staff. I know this was a relatively easy one for you-"

"Better than having it be like that Budapest job," Harry said, with a smile. He'd been ambushed by a cult who worshipped a particularly angry Norwegian Ridgeback dragon, and who'd kidnapped three young children for a sacrifice. An hour of furious fighting with the dragon and the cult, and one lost hand, later, Harry had emerged triumphant; the reattachment of his lost extremity had not been pleasant.

The Minister smiled a rueful smile. "Most definitely. Well, Harry, I'll contact you through the usual routes if something comes up. Though, hopefully, something won't. Stay safe." He stood up and leaned over the desk, shaking Harry's hand.

The two were on friendly terms after the death of Voldemort; they acknowledged each other as relative equals, and Harry marvelled how well he got on with Scrimgeour in this timeline, as opposed to the man who would do anything for publicity that he remembered. Scrimgeour's key role in the final assault on the Ministry had helped to establish himself firmly as a competent Minister; at the time people had called him barbaric for the purges of the Ministry, but in hindsight it was largely accepted as a necessary decision, and people were complimentary of Scrimgeour for having the backbone to order them.

Harry strode over to the fireplace, plucking a pinch of Floo from the silver pot on the mantle, before tossing it in and shouting:

"Sixteen White Lane, Godric's Hollow!"

With that, he stepped in smartly, and whirled away through the Floo network.

XxXx

_16 White Lane, Godric's Hollow_

"So, I was thinking Amsterdam. There's a club there throwing an all night foam party, and I figured if we got our hands on a pair of enchanted balloons, we could-"

Harry raised a hand, cutting off Sirius, with a smile. "Would this be anything like the time you got hold of those fireworks and set them off in that place in New York? Sure, we impressed those Danish girls, but we also nearly got arrested!"

Sirius looked reproachful, as much as a head in a fireplace could. "You wound me with your accusations, kid – didn't we take them, _and_ their friends, back with us after?"

Harry paused for a moment in happy reflection.

"Yeah, we did actually. Fair enough."

He was talking with Sirius, who had Flooed his head in from Grimmauld place. Harry had had a relaxing afternoon following the morning's arrest, and was sure he was on the verge of a breakthrough on his work with imbuing magical intelligence in inanimate objects. Sirius had firecalled him, a night out in mind, and they were currently tossing ideas around. They usually went out once or twice a week, and often all night.

"Trust me, Harry, this one will be cast iron. Who will you be?"

Harry took a sip of his fortified butterbeer, tapping the bottle to his chin. "Baron Gryffindor of the Royal County of Berkshire. Worked on that Parisian girl, and should work if we're going abroad and sound English. I'll just put on an accent and act like a Malfoy, that should work."

Harry and Sirius often affected false identities on their nights out, mainly for the kick of having to maintain a disguise while heavily drunk. Sirius had continued the tradition that he and James had started – he had regaled Harry with tales of times where James managed to swear blind to girls he met over the school holidays that he was a rich Viscount or the inventor of the Remembrall.

"Well if you're Baron Gryffindor, I'll be Sirius Clearwater, the discoverer of a new type of fat-reducing pill or whatever it is those Muggle scientist people dream up."

Harry laughed into his drink, rolling his eyes. "Good luck with that one, Padfoot. I'll Floo in at about nine o'clock, and we can get the Firewhiskey flowing. See you then," he gave the head a friendly wave, as Sirius nodded at him with a smile and vanished, the flames in the hearth turning from green to orange.

Harry sipped his butterbeer in silence, looking at the mantelpiece above the fireplace. There were two pictures of him, Hermione and Ron. One was of them when they were children; of the "previous" Harry whom Harry had assimilated when he had travelled in time all those years ago. The other was more recent, of the three of them in front of the River Thames, on a trip they had taken a month ago. Harry looked, in a way, out of place – a young adult standing with two fifteen year olds – but the looks on all their faces spoke of a strong friendship.

It hadn't been easy, remaking the friendship. Ron and Hermione had been pretty scared of Harry at first, and Harry had found it hard to reconcile the fact that they weren't the two people who had fought and died by his side in the most traumatic five years of his life. Eventually, however, after their fairly regular (and highly secretive, away from the prying eyes of Magical folk) trips, they had reignited their relationship. It wasn't like it was – how could it be? – but it was still Harry, Ron and Hermione.

He had found himself identifying more with Sirius, Tonks and Lupin, of late – Tonks had taken the news of Harry fairly easily, surprisingly. Sirius thought it was because of having to deal with a werewolf all the time, Harry secretly thought it was probably because he told her when she had been quite drunk, courtesy of Sirius "preparing her for the revelation" with a drinking game cheerily entitled "scorch the Purebloods off of the family tapestry, and take a shot each time" (Sirius was not the most witty person in the world when it came to naming games).

The Weasleys had probably taken it the hardest, he mused, putting his feet up on a red and gold footstool next to the comfortable armchair he was in. They knew magic could do powerful, and terrible, things, but Mr. and Mrs. Weasley (the only two, aside from Ron, who knew) had found it hard to reconcile that with necromantic magic and time travelling from a hellish future. They'd met up with Harry often over the last two and a half years, having occasional dinners with him, Ron, Hermione and others, but they kept their distance emotionally. Harry appreciated what they had done for him when he had initially time travelled – taking him in from the Dursleys over the first summer- and had to accept that, to them, he had been assumed dead for so long after Hogsmeade. The story was hard to wrap their head around.

The fact that Percy had died, crucified in the Gryffindor Common Room, did also not help matters. They were grateful Harry had finished Voldemort, but the loss of their son, especially after the period of estrangement, had hit them extremely hard. Two and a half years on, and Mrs Weasley still could not talk of Percy without crying.

Getting up from his armchair, he put his butterbeer on an end table and strolled from the living room into the kitchen, with the intent of whipping up some food before he got ready to go out with Sirius. Harry lived in a small two story cottage with three bedrooms, furnished in a fairly eclectic style. The kitchen was modern, with Muggle appliances dotted around, while the living room was relatively distinguished, more reminiscent of Hogwarts, with its wooden furniture and plush upholstery. The house also contained a workshop, duelling room and magically expanded basement, for storage.

As he wandlessly directed some bacon from the fridge into a frying pan on the hob, Harry unconsciously rubbed the scar on his wrist – the one shaped like the Dark Mark. A reminder of the rebirthing ritual he had used to bring himself out his Inferius half-life, it occasionally itched and twinged, mainly when Harry was angry. He had been highly paranoid of the influence of using Voldemort's blood in the ritual, but Dumbledore had assured him the scar was essentially just that; a scar. One to match the now-inert lightning bolt on his forehead.

Soon Harry was finished cooking, and he sat down to eat his hastily-prepared meal, his mind now on the subject of his magical studies, conducted in his ground-floor workroom. He was close to a breakthrough, he could feel it – imbuing an object with a semblance of intelligence, like a portrait. However, unlike a portrait, Harry hope to give the enchanted object the ability to learn more than just simple words and phrases (like passwords), and potentially be able to learn entirely new skills or abilities. His mother had been gifted at Charms, and it seemed that while Harry was no prodigy, he had a knack for getting things to work when he put enough effort into it – he had enough raw power. His forte was still, by and large, battle magic – it had had to be, really – but he was glad he could apply his abilities elsewhere. Dumbledore and Hermione had been pleased, at least.

Banishing the plates into the sink, he finally got to his feet, checking the time. By the time he had gotten ready it would be time to rendezvous with Sirius, and embark on whatever madcap adventure his godfather had dreamt up this time.

Sometimes, while in the midst of such nights out, he found himself thinking that being on the run from the Death Eaters was often easier on his system. Sirius' plans never actually went to plan.

XxXx

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

"Fawkes, my friend, I have to disagree there. The work is terrible, yes, but as Ollivander would say, terrible things can also be great."

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore ate a lemon drop, his eyes on his Phoenix companion, who trilled, the beautiful Phoenix's cry interlaced with an argumentative edge. Dumbledore frowned, steepling his fingers, seemingly able to divine his familiar's meaning.

"I accept your point, but I still feel I should not destroy the notes. After all, they did work, and Harry did retain most of his mind, a feat which has never been achieved. I know you disagree but I feel I did the right thing by handing over my work to the Ministry to be examined. At the very least it prevented anyone looking too deeply into the matter."

They were discussing, as they had in the past, the matter of Dumbledore's work on the Inferius magic which had revived Harry after his decapitation in Diagon Alley. A hybrid of Horcrux magic, Faust's notes on necromantic revival and Inferius spellwork, the ritual Dumbledore had Arithmantically constructed was a blasphemy of magic, but a powerful one. He himself often shuddered in memory of putting together the spellwork, and the casting thereof. After the conflict, Scrimgeour had quietly requested the notes, if they hadn't been destroyed, in exchange for dropping the matter entirely. He said they could be the breakthrough some Unspeakables needed in the examination of an archway in the Department of Mysteries; Dumbledore knew what they spoke of, and had decided to simply hand the notes over rather than pry any further.

He liked to know what was going on at any given time, but even he knew when a subject should be no longer pursued.

Fawkes gave an irritated warble and shifted on his perch, tucking his head under his wing. Dumbledore sighed, knowing when he was being ignored, and went back to his paperwork. It was April, which meant exams were beginning to loom for many students at the school; he knew Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley were studying feverishly for their OWLs (or, rather, Hermione was studying and Ron was despairing, according to Harry), and other students were trying to cram for their NEWTs.

Hogwarts had recovered reasonably well, considering. Several members of staff had been killed in the final battle, and a number of students. The Fat Lady had been irreparably cursed by Bellatrix Lestrange, and there had been severe structural damage to sections of Gryffindor Tower. However, years after the battle, things had had to move on. Professor Sinistra had taken over as head of Hufflepuff house, following the demise of Professor Sprout, and a man called Tobias Birch had been hired to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts, on Harry's recommendation. Students had been mourned, and remembered, and the castle was beginning to heal.

Albus Dumbledore certainly knew loss, and this was simply another chapter in a long life of it. As he mused over the paperwork – requisition forms for a particularly dangerous new strain of Warbling Scatterbark, for Herbology – he found himself unconsciously listing the losses he, himself, had suffered.

His parents. Aberforth, essentially gone from his life. Harry – he thought he had lost the boy at one point. James and Lily Potter, of course. The Prewetts, Kingsley Shacklebolt. Gellert, who had been his closest companion and most bitter rival... the list was endless and muddled in his mind. Even Tom Riddle, to a certain extent. Voldemort had been a despicable creature, but the boy Tom Riddle, from the orphanage...

Dumbledore shook his head, resolving not to retread the intellectual paths he had considering so many times before. He had failed Tom Riddle, just as he had failed Gellert Grindelwald – his companion whose descent into racism of both Muggleborn and those he felt were "impure" Albus had failed to prevent. He sighed, putting down the eagle quill he had been signing the documents with. Berlin, 1945. There was a reason that duel was listed along with his alchemical achievements on his Chocolate Frog Card.

He heard a burst of song, and saw Fawkes gazing down at him, looking slightly concerned. With a smile, he reached him and stroked the Phoenix's head, feeling rejuvenated by the beautiful melody.

"Apologies, old friend, I didn't mean to delve into melancholy. It has simply been a long week."

Fawkes gave him a warm look, before going back to sleep.

Albus smiled to himself, behind his beard, before picking the quill back up and continuing to sign the various forms and bureaucratic red tape.

XxXx

_Minister's Office, Ministry of Magic_

On the Minister's desk, festooned as it was with various forms of paperwork of varying importance, was a small letter, which he had overlooked.

The letter was in an envelope of thick cream paper, stamped with the red insignia of the German Ministry of Magic, and addressed to the Minister himself, with a note citing possible desire to forward it to Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts.

The letter was seemingly low priority – it had come in mixed up with a thick file on new proposed legislation for increasing the security at the rebuilt, Dementor-free, fortress of Azkaban.

It was a missive from the German Minister for Historical Affairs. It appeared, despite the magical protections on the location, including wards, some basic golems and a brace of runic traps, someone had broken into the tomb of an important historical figure, and stolen most of their remains, in addition to their wand.

The Minister stressed that this was not public knowledge in the slightest, and that they weren't particularly concerned with recovering the remains as soon as possible. An investigation was ongoing, but they reasoned no known magic, even experimental spells divined by the Unspeakables, could do anything untoward with what had been stolen. It was probably done to order by some petty collector, wanting the wand for himself, despite it probably not working very well for him, and the remains to display – this was not uncommon. The reason he had informed Scrimgeour was purely out of courtesy, seeing as Dumbledore had been the one to put the man concerned in the grave in the first place. It was a throwaway piece of correspondence, and one which Scrimgeour had yet to even open.

Honestly, the German Minister for Historical Affairs reasoned, what was anyone going to be able to _do_ with the bones and wand of Gellert Grindelwald?


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N: Kapow, another chapter done. Enjoy, my dear readers.**

**And, of course, review.**

"_Death is its own reward."_

**Chapter Two – Haven't We Been Here Before?**

_De Wallen district, Amsterdam, the Netherlands_

"Out of... out of all the people in the bloody place, you had to pick her, didn't you?" Harry said, gasping for air as he tried to catch his breath, leaning on a wall for support. "That bloke clearly twigged we were wizards when you conjured that fucking rose."

"Can't blame me," Sirius replied with a grin, wiping sweat off of his forehead with one hand, "you _did_ see what she looked like, didn't you? I wasn't looking at her face much, let's be honest. Can't blame a man for trying."

They were currently ensconced in an alleyway in the famous red-light district of Amsterdam, having had one of Sirius' famous nights out. They'd gone to a large club night, under their fake names, and had been having a fantastic time, until Sirius had spotted a particularly nice-looking young blonde woman at the bar. After buying her a drink and saying some (in Harry's opinion) outrageous pick-up lines, he had subtly conjured a red rose, before being accosted by the girl's boyfriend not minutes later.

The man had turned out to be an extremely large, extremely well-built and extremely angry German wizard (in a Muggle club – what were the chances?), who had noticed Sirius' wand when he conjured the rose, and hit him with an Anti-Apparition jinx, as well as placing one on Harry when Harry had come to intervene. While he was barely a threat in real terms, Harry had to both protect his own identity and avoid any sort of confrontation with the authorities – hence Harry and Sirius having an exhilarating on-foot twenty minute chase through Amsterdam back streets when the angry German had gathered his friends to pursue the duo.

All in all, Harry reflected, as he wandlessly cleaned the dirt and sweat he had accumulated on his shirt and trousers, it was a fairly mild night compared to some of Sirius' more infamous outings. He finally removed the Jinx put on him, before turning to Sirius and doing the same to his godfather.

"So, shall we go back?" Sirius said with a roguish wink, twirling his wand between his fingers and leaning on a dustbin. He was dressed extravagantly, his clothing all from Muggle designer shops, and an expensive watch on his wrist. He figured it was probably the best way to ensure he got the final word in with his parents – spending all their inherited money on Muggle items.

Harry checked his watch – one o'clock in the morning – and peered out of the alley, which branched off of a street which ran alongside one of the various canals which criss-crossed De Wallen.

"We should probably find another place if we're going to continue the night," he said with a shake of his head. "We don't need some random wizard claiming they've seen Harry Potter in a Dutch nightclub, I'd rather the public forget all about that stuff. The last thing I need is to get into some duel and have the authorities come down on us."

"Ah, good point. We don't want a repeat of that time we went to Moscow," Sirius said wistfully, seemingly lost in the memory. Harry winced, remembering that particular night – he'd got in a drunken argument with a random warlock in a Wizarding bar (he and Sirius had been so drunk they had forgotten to avoid such establishments), and had ended up swapping the man's hair with that of a hooker who worked there. One short duel later, he and Sirius had ended up fleeing from Russian Aurors, finally escaping by leaping from a frozen footbridge onto a carriage on a cargo train. Dumbledore had not been best pleased when he heard that two British "hooligans" had caused trouble that night.

On reflection, it was a miracle Harry had kept up his cover story of being long deceased.

"I reckon we should call it, really," Sirius continued, examining a piece of lewd graffiti on the filthy brick wall of the alley. "Bit risky. Reckon we should see what Lupin and Tonks are up to?"

"At one in the morning? Probably up to things that we'd rather not witness," Harry snorted, shaking his head. With a shared grin, he and Sirius turned on their heels and Disapparated.

There would always be other nights where they could hit the town.

XxXx

_The Department of Mysteries, British Ministry of Magic_

_One week later_

The Department of Mysteries was a labyrinth. Dozens of rooms, magically compressed around a central revolving chamber which only Unspeakables could comfortably navigate. The place where the most intimate and dangerous of magical subjects are studied, under the careful supervision of elite academics.

One of the more curious rooms was the room known as the Veil Chamber, or the Death Room – it had no official title. A room with a sunken floor, reminiscent of a Greek theatre with benches and steps leading down, the room was dominated by a large crumbling arch on a podium in the centre. The arch was the subject of study for this particular room – it had a ragged veil hanging inside it, and curiously it was hard, if not impossible, to see through the arch to the other side – it was as though the room was simply too dimly lit to make out any shapes.

To add to that, some people standing near the arch reported hearing disembodied voices from beyond the veil.  
The archway itself had been uncovered in an excavation. Most of the Ministry was indeed located under London, but the Department of Mysteries was effectively scattered around the country, with the doors in the main revolving room acting as portals to the various sub-departments. The Veil Chamber was located under Stonehenge, in Wiltshire – the ancient chamber had apparently been constructed by the wizarding folk living in the time the famous monument had been erected.

Study on the archway had been effectively at a dead end for a long time – anyone or anything sent through it never returned, and any attempts to tie a rope around an object or person, or magically monitor them, or any myriad of other ideas had all failed. Ropes untied themselves upon entry through the arch; spells went dead, even Muggle technology abruptly failed. The only "successful" experiment had been one whereupon an Unspeakable had bound his vision to an owl he had sent through, so that he saw what the owl saw. His experiment partner reported him saying simply the word "_Glorious_" before he had gone into an irrecoverable coma, coupled with inexplicable blindness.

All that was known was that the archway had a connection to Death, and so any Necromantic studies were conducted in that department. When the Unspeakables assigned to these studies received a private parcel straight from the Minister, over two and a half years ago, things had really taken off. The parcel contained anonymous notes on the subject of Necromancy, a subject considered taboo for all but the most highly trained Unspeakables, and even then never to be actually practiced.

The last wizard (as far as anyone knew) to 'successfully' raise the dead was a man called Faust, who had created an abomination trying to resurrect his dead son. The creature, a blasphemous fusion of raw magic and undead flesh, had rampaged around for days before finally being brought down, essentially unravelling at the seams through the power it forced through its veins.

These journals seemed to compensate for the inherent imperfections in Faust's work, which the Unspeakables found very interesting. They figured that should a basic form of resurrection be perfected, things such as murder trials would be instantly solvable, and perhaps a service for providing closure to loved ones could be provided. It was early days, but initial tests on animals had proved relatively promising – the animals were revived and proved to be the same animal mentally (proven by providing things such as toys from when they were alive and gauging reactions), but there was the complication of the Inferius spellwork used causing insanity over time.

Regardless of how the tests were going, the journals were recognised as extraordinarily dangerous in the wrong hands, and were thus kept under lock and key in the Departmental Archives when not in use. The Archives were infamous in their complexity – shelf after shelf of endless books, parchment and paraphernalia, physically located under Mount Snowdon in Wales.

The Archives weren't particularly well guarded – the reasoning being that to even reach them you had to be a fairly prodigious wizard, and then sorting through all the resources available, all of which were spelled against Summoning charms as a defence mechanism, was a mammoth task. And even then, most of the information contained in the Archives was pretty much incomprehensible to all but the most intelligent wizards, most of whom were Unspeakables in the first place.

Of course, Dark individuals tended to always find a way.

XxXx

_Need to do it for the Master._

_He told me what to do. He saved me from the Aurors. He'll return the Wizarding World to glory._

_Need to do it for the Master._

The figure strode purposefully through the Ministry of Magic atrium, head held high and wand out. Of course, had he not been under the effects of Polyjuice Potion, he would have been arrested, and possibly executed, within minutes. At present, however, he was assuming the visage Thomas Graves, a Magical Maintenance worker, who was currently transfigured into a rock at the bottom of the Thames. Carrying the deceased man's bag, the figure strode into the nearest lift, smirking slightly as he noticed Gawain Robards, new head of the Auror corps, rush in as the doors were closing.

Pathetic. Robards was a half-blood. Their kind could never see through even the simplest of disguises, like Polyjuice. The security in the Ministry had lapsed dramatically compared to how it had been when his Master was around.

After a few minutes of travel, the man disguised as Thomas Graves left the lift on the Ninth floor, wishing Robards (who was heading for the Courtrooms) a good day, and emerged by the door to the Department of Mysteries, at the end of an unassuming corridor. With a quick look around, the figure pressed his stolen Magical Maintenance badge, which lit up, indicating he was on a job and so was unavailable for other work.

He strode through the door, and into the round room which deterred intruders into the Department. Looking down at his unfamiliar reflection in the floor – that of a skeletal, ratty-faced man with a receding hairline and pathetic dyed pencil moustache – he closed his eyes as the doors revolved and the torches blurred. Once the room had settled down, the man waved his wand, muttering a spell which his Master had gleaned from a tortured Unspeakable – it revealed which door went where.

Spotting the door which now read _Departmental Archives_ on a brass nameplate which had appeared from nowhere, the man went through, emerging in a brightly lit stone corridor, with torches burning merrily in wall brackets. He ventured down the corridor, turning a corner, and emerged in the Archive.

A vast, airy room hollowed out of Mount Snowdon itself, the Archive was an impressive sight. Vast bookshelves, some as high as fifty feet, towered above, packed with books and information. It was easily the size of a large Muggle aircraft hanger, and was rumoured to magically expand the further you went into it.

Acting fast, so as not to draw the attention of the librarian Unspeakables who attended to the Archive, the figure put down his stolen duffle bag and entered the stacks, clutching his wand tightly. He needed to find the documents he needed, but they wouldn't be available to Summon or magically detect, unless he was a librarian...

He froze, in between two gargantuan bookshelves, as a librarian Apparated in front of him – only they could in this place. There were three of them, and normally only one was on duty at any one time. They were generally ex-Auror, and wore badges which allowed them to bypass the enchantments on the Archive. The infiltrator mentally chastised himself – he should have realised they'd have detection wards to highlight any visitors.

"Can I help you?" the librarian said, questioningly, his wand still raised. He was an older man, with silver hair a body which looked past its prime, dressed in the purple of an Unspeakable. His face was lined, and did not look friendly.

"Thomas Graves, MM," the figure in disguise said, pleasantly, showing his badge. The librarian lowered his wand slightly, but did not put it away entirely.

"I wasn't aware we had any problems requiring Maintenance's help," he replied, his tone slightly more cordial.

"I got told that you had a fading Muggle-Repelling ward," the man impersonating Graves replied smoothly, his face betraying no hint of the lies. "Control was worried a Muggle hiker might stumble across something."

"Now that you mention it, the ward indicators _were_ a bit pale the other day. I'll show you to the runes," the librarian said, lowering his wand now he was satisfied with the reason for the visit. "Follow me, please."

As the librarian turned his back, the man disguised as Graves whipped his wand forward in a swift motion, hissing a spell. An azure jet of light shot into the back of the yellow-robed librarian, pitching him forward onto the carpeted Archive floor, seemingly unconscious but probably dead. Not missing a beat, the infiltrator knelt next to the fallen librarian and ripped off his badge, a silver shield emblazoned with the logo for the Department of Mysteries, and fastened it to his chest.

Now able to bypass the security spells on the books, the man raised his wand.

"_Accio journals_," he spat, concentrating on the items he wanted. After a pregnant pause the tied-up bundle of books which he had been searching for zoomed into the aisle, and into the man's arms. With a tap of his wand they were transfigured into books of spells for Magical Maintenance. With his free hand he pulled out a letter, placing it on the body of the fallen librarian – it would deflect the blame from his Master.

Getting out would be a cinch – the Polyjuice was nowhere near wearing off. With one last look at the unfortunate librarian, the thief strode off, tearing off the librarian's badge as he did so and discarding it without a second glance.

_The Master will be pleased. _

_ He will rise again._

_ The Dark Lord._

XxXx

_Two days later_

"You're quite sure of this, Rufus? The journals have been taken?" Dumbledore said, eyebrows raised as he sat back in his comfortable Headmaster's chair, a worried look playing about his face. Fawkes made a quiet noise from his perch in the corner, which sounded horrendously like 'I told you so.'

"Yes, Albus, I am. They've been stolen. Apparently some sort of magical peace group got wind of them and took them for 'the good of the Magical World'. I think that's a load of bollocks, personally – they murdered an Unspeakable librarian with a spine shattering curse during the theft. Magical peace indeed. It's clearly a ruse to throw us off," Scrimgeour's disembodied head replied, floating in Dumbledore's fireplace.

"Indeed. I shall contact some people and see if we can find anything out. In the meantime look into your files and see if there were any Death Eaters unaccounted for when Voldemort –" Scrimgeour didn't flinch at all, the name held no fear anymore – "was killed. Perhaps they want to resurrect their master again."

"I thought that'd be impossible? We totally incinerated his corpse and scattered it in the North Sea. You surely need actual body material to perform that ritual," Scrimgeour said, his words weighted with the implication that, of anyone, Dumbledore would know. He was, of course, the only person to have performed Necromancy and actually brought the subject back fully. Not something he could exactly put on a Chocolate Frog card, however.

"I shouldn't imagine we are in any danger of seeing Tom brought back, once more, from the dead. By any means." Dumbledore leaned forward in his chair. "You know of the circumstances surrounding his resurrection from his first encounter with Harry fifteen years ago. There are otherworldly creatures out there who he tried to bargain with. I imagine wherever Tom is, he is not having the most pleasant experience. He cheated the being Asmodeus, or rather tried to."

"Can't say he deserves an easy ride," Scrimgeour replied with a sigh, a hand popping through the fire to run his fingers through his hair. "Look, I'll keep you updated. Tell me if you find anything. We can always put Harry on the case if he wants something to do - he seems pretty good at this kind of thing. I'm just a bit wary of calling him immediately because of, well – because of what was stolen."

Dumbledore nodded gravely. "I did not expressly tell him I had destroyed the notes pertaining to his resurrection, but I did not tell him I had handed them over to the Ministry. As manipulative as it may seem, I feel we should keep Harry firmly out of the loop for now, it may simply dredge up dark memories for him. There is no inclination that anything especially untoward is being done with the documents. We can start investigations and move from there."

"I agree. I'll keep you posted, Albus. Incidentally, there's going to be a dinner marking my fifty-fifth birthday next month. I'll send you a formal invitation when they are finalised. If you speak to Harry, tell him that I can arrange for him to be Polyjuiced should he wish to attend." It was a mark of how much Scrimgeour and Harry now got along, as compatriots in the field of fighting Dark Wizards, that he wished him to be present at his birthday.

"Certainly," Dumbledore said with a smile, eating a Lemon Drop as he did so. "I shall owl you if I find anything interesting. Goodbye, Minister."

XxXx

_Number 10 Downing Street, London, United Kingdom_

_Two days later_

"What do you mean, they _all_ disappeared? That doesn't exactly happen every day, Miriam! Christ, do the press know? The Home Secretary's son was on that bus - pull every available officer and scour the area. If the Irish have done something, this is going to get extremely ugly."

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was not having an especially good day. Weighed down by scandal, and coming down with some sort of flu, he wanted nothing more than to be at home with a good novel. But now Miriam, his private secretary, was telling him a busload of schoolchildren had completely disappeared on a school trip to the Lake District. The press, and the families, were unaware of any problems, and his Home Secretary had a ten year old son on that trip.

The bus had not been going through an especially dangerous area of the District – no winding mountain passes where it could have run off the road, perish the thought. No... there was something decidedly unusual about the whole situation.

He paused, re-reading the report Miriam had given him. At the back of his mind, a nasty little voice was whispering.

_It was probably those bloody Wizards_.

The events of over two years previous had aged the Prime Minister prematurely – added lines to his already weathered brow, and silvered his hair even further. Voldemort, the Phoenix... the Magical Pacification force... it had been an insane month or so, hushed up as IRA violence.

Now this... if anything, the Wizards perhaps knew a way of tracking the children. If they could get this sorted within twenty four hours, the press needn't be informed until the government had competently recovered the children.

"Miriam, leave me be. I need to make some calls. Cancel my appointment with the Foreign Secretary regarding our contributions to the ITER project." He said, absently, adjusting his owlish glasses without looking up at his middle-aged peroxide blonde secretary. She nodded primly, and left the room, carefully shutting the door.

After a pause, the Prime Minister looked wearily at the portrait of the ugly man which hung on the wall to his right, and nodded his head. The man in the picture winked, and walked out of frame, whereupon the Prime Minister reached into a drawer at the bottom of his fine oak desk and pulled out a decanter of brandy.

On days like this, he needed it. The fact it was barely 6 o'clock in the evening could go hang, in his opinion.

After a short wait, the fireplace in the wall burst into life with green flames, and the figure of Rufus Scrimgeour, Minister of Magic, whirled through, a tall and imposing figure with shaggy hair, lined with grey. He was dressed in fine black robes with a red trim, and looked relaxed – a far cry from how he had been during the Voldemort business.

"Prime Minister," he said warmly. "For what reason do I owe the pleasure?" he took a seat in front of the desk, and the Prime Minister pushed the report he had been reading over to Scrimgeour, saying nothing as he poured his opposite number a brandy.

Scrimgeour read the report with a frown. "Hmm. I can understand why you called me, but I'm afraid this is the first I've heard of this. The vehicle they were travelling in... a "minibus", is that something which cannot disappear easily? A similar size to our Knight Bus?"

The Prime Minister blinked. "I have no idea what the 'Knight Bus' looks like, but a minibus is a vehicle for about 15 people, plus the driver and supervising member of staff. Not especially large compared to some things, but not exactly small. And not easy to have disappear."

Scrimgeour ran his hands through his hair, distracted. "Well, like I said, I haven't heard anything of this. There aren't any kidnapping cults or sacrificial cells active in Britain as far as the Ministry is aware... this 'Jonny' who is mentioned, is he a relative of one of your ministers?"

The Prime Minister nodded grimly, taking a sip of brandy. "If the press gets hold of this and we have no idea where the bus went, this could be a disaster. I'm half tempted to blame the Irish, but this isn't something they'd do. We're trying to secretly put together some sort of agreement with them to put to a national vote; they have no motive to suddenly disrupt it now by kidnapping a dozen schoolkids and some adults."

"I agree. A magical individual could well be to blame. Rest assured, Prime Minister, I shall look into this. How old did you say these children were?"

"Ten. Mostly nearing eleven."

"Eleven. The year the Ministry checks for magical abilities..." Scrimgeour said, thoughtfully. "I'll get some of my Aurors on this. If we find anything, we'll tell you. Otherwise, best of luck, and my sympathies to the parents who will have to wait for news." He had not touched the brandy. Getting up, Scrimgeour leaned over the table, shaking the Prime Minister's hand warmly, and idly tapping the report to make a copy. With a last nod, he strode back through the still-green fireplace, which extinguished as soon as he had gone, as though there had been no fire there for years. The ugly man slowly strolled back into his portrait.

"Bloody wizards..." the Prime Minister muttered, shaking his head and knocking back more brandy.

When _they_ needed a hand, they expected you to help them, as the world would end otherwise. When _you_ needed a hand it was all 'we'll look into it'.

He sighed, putting aside the report on the missing children. The next piece of paper for his consideration detailed a junior minister who had been caught with a prostitute in Islington the previous night, on camera. The Prime Minister groaned, letting his head slump down onto his desk with a quiet bang.

Sometimes it was not the easiest thing to be the leader of a country.

**A/N: The plot thickens. Who is the mysterious figure? Will the Prime Minister ever get a break? All this and more, next chapter. **

**Review!**


	4. Chapter 3

"_Don't adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story."_

**Chapter Three – I'm As Confused As You Are**

"Are you sure about this, Tonks?" Harry asked, his face a picture of concern. He leaned close to the Metamorphagus, as she looked back at him.

"Very sure, kid. I did all this personally." Her hair cycled from chestnut brown to a pleasing shade of copper as she leaned back in her chair, pushing the parchment over to Harry, who was sitting opposite her in Harry's living room.

"How could we have overlooked that? It's been over two years, you think they would have done the bloody cleanup better than this!" Harry read the parchment, brow furrowed.

"Yeah, but things were pretty mental then. Half the Aurors were dead," she paused for a moment, before continuing – many of her _friends_ were dead, "and they needed to rebuild Hogwarts. It's no wonder this was lost in the paperwork."

Tonks had been asked by Scrimgeour to quietly look into any unaccounted-for Death Eaters after the fall of Voldemort. While the subject had been documented, no one had looked very hard into it prior to now – Voldemort was dead, and none of his followers had ever been especially powerful. If one had made it through, it probably made little difference in the long run.

Approximately a dozen individuals, men and women, were unaccounted for. Most were very minor – the occasional low-level Ministry spy believed to have fled abroad, or a fence for stolen goods Voldemort had equipped his forces with. One stood out – a man who had been captured under Polyjuice, and who had subdued three Aurors before escaping, early on in the war. He was clearly a wizard of some skill, which disturbed Harry.

He had been asked by Scrimgeour to look into the disappearance of a bus load of children, on the behest of the Prime Minister. The incident was national Muggle news, the kids having been missing for a week. No rescue missions had turned up anything, even using aerial surveillance. It was as though the bus had vanished into thin air – something, Harry thought grimly, that was not exactly beyond the average wizard.

He hadn't had many leads so far – he'd shaken down some people he kept an eye on with little to show for it – so he'd turned to Tonks for help. The two of them had gotten off to a shaky start in terms of knowing each other – Harry's story of time travel and Necromancy had been one which Tonks had found unnerving – but now they were firm friends, their similar ages making it easy to identify.

"So... we've got a mystery man who no one ever picked up on, despite him being able to outduel three Aurors. Interesting. Any other leads on these children?" Harry asked, putting his feet up on the red and gold footstool he kept in his living room.

"We did have one, actually, which is why I wanted to see you. Guy called Reynolds was overheard trying to flog parts of a Muggle minibus to some bloke who uses that kind of thing for artwork. The artist is innocent – he was just in a bar – but you have to ask where Reynolds gets his stuff from. He's known to be a dodgy character, mixed up in debt collection. I can give you his address if you want. But Harry, remember – innocent until proven guilty. Don't go roughing him up too much."

Harry smiled and gave her a wink.

"Tonks, your accusations wound me. I'll simply sit him down and ask him some polite questions, man to man."

"Sure, kid," she said, rolling her eyes. "And I'll start wearing silver jewellery from now on."

XxXx

"This doesn't have to be this way, Reynolds," the masked man in white said, calmly. "All you have to do is tell me where you got the parts from the Muggle bus, and you're out of here."

Reynolds' knees gave way, leaving Harry to hold him up by his collar. They were currently in a silenced back room in a dingy Knockturn Alley pub, the Sleazy Weasel. Harry had tipped the barkeep, while under the effects of a Glamour charm, to tell Reynolds to meet him in the private room. Reynolds, a podgy balding man who could have been Mundungus Fletcher's brother, had swiftly discovered this was not the business opportunity he had been hoping for when Harry, masked and imposing, had thrown him against the wall as soon as he'd shut the door.

"I... I dunno anything, I swear! I got the stuff from some guy!" he babbled, his wand lying discarded on the floor and his filthy robes stinking of sweat. Harry leaned in close, wrinkling his nose behind his faceless mask.

"Last chance, Reynolds. I really don't want to have to do anything I would have to regret." He held the scrounger up with one hand and pointed his wand at his face with the other, slowly and pointedly lowering it to point at the man's groin.

"Oh god, oh god!" Reynolds hissed, screwing up his eyes. "Fine, fine, for Merlin's sake! Some bloke down Knockturn came up to me the other day and said he needed to get rid of the gear. I smelt a deal 'cos I knew that artist, so I went for it, that's it! I swear!"

"Not bad, but not good either. What did the man look like?" Harry replied, not loosening his grip or moving his wand.

"Christ, I dunno, he was wearing a hood, I didn't see his face!"

"Not looking good for you then, is it?" Harry spat, moving the wand closer to Reynolds' crotch.

"Fuck, fine, um, fuck I remember! He dropped a bit of paper when he went to get his money! I saw some sort of plan on it,"

"Carry on. You might get out of here in one piece."

"I picked it up for him, casual like, saw that he seemed to be going to Paris and to some place in London, some orphanage in Lambeth. That's all I know, I swear on my mother's life!"

Harry's mind whirled. Orphanage in Lambeth? That sounded horribly like the orphanage Tom Riddle grew up in... but it couldn't be...

He snapped his attention back to the snivelling thief in his hands.

"That wasn't so hard, was it? Now get the hell out of here," he spat, pushing Reynolds roughly towards the door and kicking his oak wand at him. Reynolds grabbed the wand and was out the door in an instant, without a second glance.

Harry stood there in thought for a moment, before Disapparating. This would probably require a talk with Dumbledore.

XxXx

Dumbledore ate a lemon drop, brow furrowed in thought.

"I feel you're right, Harry. There are no other orphanages in Lambeth that I can think of, although I confess to not being an expert on the area. They are not exactly common places, not any more. I have some thoughts on the matter, but what do you think?" he said, observing Harry over the top of his half-moon spectacles.

Harry sat back, still garbed in his white outfit. He'd Apparated to the Shrieking Shack and gone, Disillusioned, through the tunnel and out to Dumbledore's office. It was now early afternoon on a crisp and cold April day, and Dumbledore had come back from lunch to find Harry talking to Fawkes amiably.

"Well, I reckon, if its Voldemort's orphanage, whoever this guy is he's set up in the caverns below, where we fought that dragon with three heads,"

"And where you manifested the magical aura, yes. Well, I for one concur, and I feel we should investigate this without delay. If there is a chance of recovering the children..." he sighed heavily, "we have to hope we can."

Harry nodded grimly. "There's all sorts of stuff they could use kids for, I saw some of it back in my original timeline." Part of him idly reflected how strange his life must be that he could talk like this. "Horcrux rituals, for one."

"We had better hope no-one has uncovered the means to make any more of _those_. I suggest we go this evening, perhaps with Sirius? We were the three individuals who originally uncovered the cavern we suspect is being used, perhaps it is fitting we revisit that place." Dumbledore replied, raising a hand to stroke Fawkes, who was perched on the back of his chair. Outside clouds began to form in the iron-grey sky, promising rain later that evening.

"Seems like a good enough plan. Between us three there isn't much we should have to worry about – we did kill some hyped up dragon the last time we were there. Some sick cultists should be fairly easy to deal with. And it's not like they'll be expecting _you_, let alone me."

Dumbledore bowed his head, with a smile.

"You flatter me. However, I again concur. I shall contact you using Fawkes when it is time for us to go. You should inform Master Black of our plans, and make sure he is free. Failing that, we can simply go alone." He got to his feet, popping a lemon drop into his mouth, and patted Harry on the shoulder. "I'll see you this evening, Harry."

Harry got up as well, nodding at Dumbledore with a smile. "See you this evening, Headmaster."

XxXx

_Lambeth, South London_

_Several hours later_

"If there's another bloody dragon, Harry, I swear to god..." Sirius muttered, as they strode quickly, heads down, past the orphanage where Reynolds had indicated the mysterious figure had been associated with. They had confirmed that, indeed, this was the only orphanage in the area. A quick reconnaissance had shown that no men had been to visit in the last few days, according to the receptionist.

"I highly doubt there will be, Sirius," Dumbledore said quietly, looking rather dapper in a tailored Muggle suit, albeit one a delicate shade of teal. "And if there is, we have experience in that field."

Harry smiled, sidestepping to avoid a harassed looking mother and her young son. It was nightfall, and there was a light April shower which drove most off of the streets, leaving the sideroad they were in fairly quiet, and rather damp. Harry, Sirius and Dumbledore ducked into a dirty side alley (he was spending far too much time in these, he reflected), the one they had used years before, and looked about carefully for anyone. With one last glance at the grim-looking orphanage, they turned on their heel to Disapparate to the rocky cavern beneath the earth.

The first impression Harry got was of blinding light, searing into his eyes. It was clear the cavern was somewhat better lit than when he was last here.

The second impression was a foul stench of blood and death.

The third impression was that a green tinged spell, reeking of decay, was zooming towards his head.

"_DUCK!_" Sirius shouted, shoving him down as the Killing Curse exploded the cavern wall where Harry's head had been seconds before. Harry rolled to the side, blowing up a cloud of dust and avoiding a follow-up curse, and rose to his feet to deflect the next two spells on reflex, before taking in the scene before him.

It was not a pretty sight. On the plus side, they had found the children.

On the downside, they did not seem to be in a fit state to be returned to their families.

Five cultists were duelling with Sirius, Harry and Dumbledore, in the large cavern where Gryffindor's wand had once been stored as a Horcrux, guarded by an insane three headed dragon, magically altered by Voldemort. A series of cages lined one of the walls, with cots and rough living supplies next to them – the children and cultists had clearly been here for more than a day or so. The rest of the floor was dominated by elaborate pentagrams and drawings, which were stained with blood and, to Harry's horror, small bodies.

They'd sacrificed the children, or most of them anyway, to fuel whatever sick ritual they had performed. A black stone altar in the centre of the runic floor patterns, with runes carved roughly into the top, was absolutely drenched with blood, yet whatever had once rested there was gone.

Harry took all this in in a second, and doubled his resolve. Countering the cultist duelling him – a wizened looking old man with not many teeth – he thrust his wand forward.

"_Fulminus!"_ he roared, and a thick lance of golden light was spat out of the end of his holly wand, spearing into the chest of the cultist, blowing a ragged hole on impact. To his right, Sirius was handily duelling one of the men, having dispatched the other with a Bludgeoning curse. Dumbledore was already finished, the duel having lasted only seconds, with the two foul cultists bound and gagged in crystal chains, both unconcious.

"_Rexto_!" he heard Sirius hiss, and the lone cultist's shield was sliced in half by the azure curse, which blew the man backwards and into the bloody stone altar, where his head slammed into the stone with an ominous _crunch_. He was out for the count, if not dead.

"Fuck me," Sirius gasped, as he looked around at the gore-strewn chamber. "What the hell did they do here?"

Harry surveyed the scene with a grim eye, as Dumbledore next to him imperceptibly trembled with cold fury.

"I know this ritual," the Headmaster said, simply. His face was bloodless, his lips thin behind his impressive white beard. "It is in a similar vein to the one you used to resurrect yourself, Harry, and the one your original Voldemort used to bring himself back to life after the Third Task. It is a ritual to build a body."

"Good _god_," Sirius spat. "Haven't we had enough of those rituals? Potions, child murder, demons?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "Magic can be wonderful, but also foul."

He waved his wand, and the bodies and various body parts scattered in the intricate pentagrams and Arithmantic equations drawn on the floor were moved into a neat pile to one side of the room. "This is going to be extraordinarily hard to explain to the Muggles. These were all non magical children, from what I can tell – they had yet to be checked for the ability. And, forgive me for being logical, I feel we have two bodies missing."

"Merlin," Harry said, his mouth open. "Two children _still missing_?" he tried not to look at the pile in the corner, to be detached and concentrate on the task at hand. He turned to the bound cultists, who were lying next to the unconscious, or dead, body of their friend, by the black stone altar. "We can question these bastards."

Sirius started forward, wand raised, but Dumbledore raised his hand.

"No, Sirius. We can't shed any more blood here. We need to be rational about this, and use Veritaserum – I will contact Severus once we move these... people," he said with a slight tone of contempt, "back to the Castle. We also need to contact the Prime Minister, and tell him what has happened. I fear this will strain our relations with the non-Magical world."

Harry nodded. "This doesn't look good for wizarding folk. What are we going to do with..." he gestured, weakly, at the pile of bodies and limbs, all far too small for his liking.

Dumbledore sighed, a weary sigh. "I'll talk to the Prime Minister about it. For now we should try to... clean up, move the bodies to a secure location – I suggest Grimmauld Place – as well as moving the two men here." His lined mouth was downturned slightly, a far cry from his usual self. He was slightly stooped, the weight of the situation bearing down upon him.

Harry shook his head slowly. "This is worse than I would have thought. I assumed it was some sort of ransom..."

"Same here," Sirius said weakly, as Dumbledore set about cleaning the blood off of the floor and Portkeying the tiny bodies in the corner away to Grimmauld Place. He leaned on the now-clean altar for support, his face ashen. "I've seen some things, you've definitely seen some things, and Dumbledore will have seen more than both of us combined, but this..."

"Its been over two and a half years since I've had to deal with any shit like this," Harry replied, looking hard at the bound and gagged cultists.

"Gentlemen, I feel we should waste no time. I will put a preservation charm on these pentagrams so as to keep them fresh for the Unspeakables to examine." Dumbledore had finished Portkeying the children away, and cleaning the room – now he knelt next to the prisoners, putting a small rock on each of them before whispering a spell which sent them whirling away. Next he Transfigured the other three bodies into small marbles, placing them in his pocket. With a casual wave of his wand golden sparkles flew out of the end, settling over the ugly runic traces on the cavern floor, glittering gently.

"We should go to interrogate these men now," he said, looking at Harry and Sirius. "Hold my arm." He extended it, and Harry and Sirius gently grasped the material of the garish teal suit. With a smart turn, Dumbledore Side-Along Apparated them through the Hogwarts wards (a privilege of the Headmastership) and into the dungeons, where the three dead (Dumbledore had unTransfigured the bodies upon arrival) and two living cultists were lying in a small cell. Harry had only been down to this area of the castle once or twice – they had about a dozen holding cells which hadn't been used in centuries, arranged along a corridor, much like a conventional prison.

Dumbledore flicked his wand, sending a Phoenix Patronus shooting out of the end, which soared off out of the cell block, melting through the wall while giving off gentle silver light.

"To summon Severus," he explained. He, Harry and Sirius conjured some comfortable wooden chairs, with some rough crude ones for the prisoners. Levitating the crystal-bound pair of men, they then seated and strapped them to the conjured chairs, before sitting opposite them. The corpses they simply pushed to one side.

After a few minutes' terse silence, Severus Snape entered the holding area, holding a small clear bottle of liquid. He walked past some of the empty cells, before coming to the occupied one.

"Snape," Harry said, by way of a greeting. Snape just looked, taking in the scene behind his curtain of ill-kempt hair. Dumbledore, Harry and Sirius, all in Muggle clothing. Three dead men dressed in cheap black robes, with two bound by crystal chains to chairs.

"I see you have been out, Headmaster," he said, ignoring Harry and Sirius completely. While Snape and Harry respected each other, grudgingly, and were on the same side, it didn't mean they had to _like_ each other. Sirius, of course, would always like Snape about as much as he loved the idea of facial disfigurement.

"Indeed, Severus. I shan't bore you with the details right now, but suffice to say we are in need of Veritaserum, and the lives of innocent people perhaps ride on the answers we receive." Dumbledore replied, smoothly Transfiguring his suit into more 'normal' teal robes. Snape nodded, his beetle-brows furrowed, before handing over the bottle of Veritaserum and standing next to Dumbledore, who stood up in front of the first cultist, a young man with blond hair, with a large scar down his right cheek and terrible teeth.

Opening the man's mouth with a wave of his hand, Dumbledore let three drops of Veritaserum drop onto his tongue.

"_Enervate_," he whispered, and the man opened his eyes, drowsily, seemingly nonplussed by the chains surrounding him.

"Your name?" Dumbledore asked, sitting back down.

"Gerard Wurter," the blond man replied, in a monotone, raising his blue eyes to bore into Dumbledore's. Harry couldn't tell if it was the Veritaserum causing his attitude, or if there was something untoward about it. His accent was English.

"What were you doing in the cavern under the orphanage?" Dumbledore asked, prompting a puzzled look from Snape, who nonetheless said nothing.

"The Master's work," the cultist replied instantly.

"Who is your Master?"

"He is the Master."

Dumbledore frowned. "That was not an answer to my question. What is the 'Master's' name?"

The blond man's face turned to vague unsettled confusion. "He is... the Master."

"Headmaster," Severus interjected quietly, "he may be unaware of his superior's identity. The Veritaserum forces him to tell what he _thinks_ is the truth.

Dumbledore nodded in agreement.

"Gerard, what ritual were you performing?" Dumbledore asked, prompting Harry and Sirius to lean in, in interest.

"The ritual the Master made us perform. He said it was to make a body for his Master."

"The Master has a Master?" Harry said, glancing at Dumbledore, who motioned for him to be quiet for a moment.

"Gerard, where did you get the children from?" the Headmaster asked.

"We were given them by the Master. He said he took them from the Muggles. We separated the Magical from the Muggles, and performed the ritual like he told us to. We were cleaning up when you arrived and defeated us." The monotone voice was beginning to grate.

"Where did they take the Magical children?" Dumbledore asked, his voice level, betraying little emotion himself.

"We gave them to the Master, who said he would use them to revive his Master."

"This is going in fucking circles," Sirius said, running a hand through his long black hair. "Gerard, do you know where your Master is based? Was he going to contact you?"

Gerard looked like he was thinking for a moment. "No. And he was not going to contact us. We were to wait at a cave in the north of England. I know where it is to Apparate to, but you have to descend down from a cliff, and there is an underground lake, and a font. He said it was a special place for his Master."

Harry took a sharp intake of breath, along with Dumbledore, leaving Sirius and Snape looking at them.

"Fuck," Harry said succinctly. "This is much worse than we thought."

Dumbledore nodded sagely. "It cannot be what I am thinking. Tom cannot bring himself back a third time."

Snape paled. "_What?" _he hissed. "Are you telling me this cultist is working for a man trying to resurrect the Dark Lord?"

"The cave," Harry explained, "was where Voldemort stored one of his Horcruxes. It was where... well, it was where Dumbledore essentially was weakened enough to be killed by you, Snape, in my previous timeline."

Snape nodded, looking daggers at the cultist, who was looking ahead placidly. "I feel we have learned all we can from this one," he said, sharply. "Question the other one and let us decide what action to take."

The other man, an older bald gentlemen with a scraggy greying beard, said pretty much the same thing. There was a Master, who was trying to revive _his_ Master, and they were due to meet him in the cave, having made some sort of body using the children. The cave, upon questioning the older cultist, was unmistakably described as the one the Locket had been hidden in.

"So," Dumbledore said, having sent the men back to sleep, "What is our course of action?"

Snape, having conjured himself a chair, sat down, not looking at Harry or Sirius. "If the Dark Lord instituted a contingency plan in the case of his demise, who would carry it out? I was under the impression all of the Death Eaters with any power or significance were eradicated."

"Tonks found one mystery man missing, but that was it, aside from the small-fry. We don't even know his name," Harry replied. "Frankly I don't know what to make of this. We'll have to go to the cave and see if we can catch this "Master" in the act. And hopefully we can rescue the kids, as well."

Sirius nodded in assent.

"I agree, Harry," said Dumbledore. "We can reconvene tomorrow – the second gentlemen said the meeting was to occur tomorrow at midnight. I will contact the Prime Minister, and update him on the situation, and go about formulating a cover story – a tragic accident, most likely. Upsetting and distressing, but needs must." He looked old, wearied. "I just hope Tom has not found another way to return."

"I think," said Snape in a clipped tone, "You are not the only one sharing that sentiment, Headmaster."

For perhaps the first time in their lives, Harry and Sirius found themselves wholeheartedly agreeing with Severus Snape.

**A/N: There you go chaps, the plot thickens. Have a good read, leave a review!**


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N: Having a nice lazy couple of days, readers, so I'm cranking them out!**

**Read, and review!**

"_If you choose death and destruction, death and destruction will choose you."_

**Chapter Four – The Cave**

_10 Downing Street, London_

_The Next Day_

"Look, Scrimgeour. I appreciate this is not the easiest thing for you to deal with, and I appreciate that back when that Dark Lord was alive things were equally difficult. But _you_ have to damn appreciate that every time you come through my fireplace, its never a good thing. Its always a story of a psychopath with the power to level a city, or commit genocide, or raise the dead. Now you're telling me I have to stand, face the public, face the _parents_, and lie directly to them. Lie to them about how and why their children died. Deliver to them _corpses_ which your people have _altered_ to look like car accident victims? What the _hell_ is wrong with you?" the Prime Minister said, his usual stoic calm slipping, along with his glasses. He ran a hand angrily through his silver hair, his other hand, which was grasping a pen, shaking.

"Prime Minister, I-" Scrimgeour, who was sitting opposite him looking suitably contrite, tried to reply. The Prime Minister cut him off, slamming a hand onto the table.

"I don't want _excuses_!" he snapped, seemingly gathering the courage to talk down to the head of the Wizarding government, diplomacy be damned. "This is not something I can sweep aside easily. My Home Secretary's son was on that bus, and you don't even know what happened to him! I knew that boy, Scrimgeour. For all the talk I've been given that magic is amazing, and all the frankly miraculous stuff you seem to be able to do, when it comes down to it all I seem to actually witness is stuff I could read in a Lovecraft story."

Scrimgeour remained silent, waiting to see if the Prime Minister was finished.

"With all due respect," he replied, his face betraying nothing, "I am doing the best I can. There are tens of thousands of magical people in Britain, and I would like to think we do a very good job of staying hidden. You do realise in this week alone there have been over fifteen violations of the Statute of Secrecy? We, that is the Ministry, try our best, Prime Minister. We do keep the vast majority of this under wraps, and you barely hear from us. And I appreciate that when you do, it is usually the worst case scenarios, but that is simply because they have to be to even get to this stage."

The Prime Minister leaned back in his chair, his hand still perceptibly shaking as he tried to calm himself down.

"Scrimgeour, I'm going to give you a week to find out what has happened to the two remaining children. After that, I don't know what I'm going to do. You can threaten me, wipe my mind, enchant me, I honestly don't care as I'm pretty sure you wouldn't stoop to that point, or you would have already."

What he didn't add was that, following the Voldemort fiasco, the Prime Minister had arranged, once a year, for a package to be delivered to him from himself, which contained detailed descriptions of the Wizarding World as far as he knew. This was to ensure they didn't do precisely what he was suggesting now.

"You might think I can't do anything to you, that you're untouchable. I can't say I know you that well, I don't know if you're as arrogant as some of the people you're describing seem to be. All I know is what your world causes no end of problems for mine, all the time. As far as I'm aware there is no such thing as 'Muggle'-Wizarding prejudice, only the other way around. I am reaching the end of my patience with your kind. Sort it out."

Scrimgeour listened in stony silence, with the air of a chastised schoolboy. The Prime Minister inwardly crowed with satisfaction, intermingled with his raw anger that this man couldn't seem to do _anything_ right. With a curt nod and a promise to keep him update, Scrimgeour stiffly got to his feet and left via the fireplace, leaving the Prime Minister alone.

After a few minutes of quiet reflection, the Prime Minister pulled out some notepaper from a drawer, and scribbled a note to his secretary to arrange a meeting for a man called Davidson.

Davidson had encountered the Wizards before, having set up the Magical Pacification force during its short operational tenure, but had had his mind magically wiped afterwards. The Prime Minister felt that now was perhaps the time to remind him of what he had forgotten, and perhaps look into forming some sort of proper countermeasures against the Wizards.

Just because they had succeeded with that Voldemort fellow years before, did _not_ mean the same thing could never happen again. And that Phoenix fellow, the only one who had ever seemed competent, had bought it last time. That in itself made the Prime Minister nervous.

Whatever happened, it couldn't hurt to be prepared.

XxXx

_Grimmauld Place_

_Evening of the same day_

"Are you ready?" Dumbledore said, looking at Harry seriously. "I understand this will be the first time you have returned to this place since the previous timeline, seeing as we realised the 'Horcrux' contained within was a fake."

Harry nodded, his mouth set in a thin line.

"I should be fine, Headmaster. Although it will be the second time I've gone there with you, and the last time it did not end well."

They were in the hallway of Grimmauld Place, preparing to leave for the cave, and the meeting with 'The Master'. The prisoners, and the bodies, had been safely delivered to the Ministry. Dumbledore had received a terse message from Scrimgeour that morning – recover the children, or it was going to get extraordinarily ugly with the Muggles. The pressure was on, and Sirius was unfortunately tied up for that evening.

"I think we will be fine, my boy," Dumbledore said with a smile, his eyes twinkling. "After all, I am with you."

Harry let him take his arm, and Side-Along-Apparated Dumbledore and himself to the top of the cliff face that he remembered so well. It was just about evening, and the sun was beginning to set, sending tongues of red and yellow light into the darkening sky. Below them the surf pounded mercilessly against the rocky cliffs, the freezing water a storm-grey from where they were standing. They could have Apparated right to the entrance where you met the wall which needed to be smeared with blood, but Harry didn't want to risk it in case the tides submerged it or something equally unpredictable.

The pair of them cast the Levitation charm, carefully controlling their descent down the cliff face until they were level with the gaping gash of the cave, carved into the rock. After a few seconds of floating uneasily in the dark, they both landed on solid ground – the venerable Headmaster in vermillion robes, Harry in a black combat outfit, with a brace of potions on his belt.

"Do you remember this, then?"Dumbledore asked quietly. They were standing by the entrance to the cave – the alcove in the sheer cliff face which was a solid rock wall, requiring blood to pass by. It stank of seaweed and saltwater, and a gentle spray blew over the pair of them every so often. It was getting difficult to see, but not overtly so.

"Yes," Harry said, looking at the wall. After a moment he pulled out his wand, cutting a shallow gash in his bicep, before smearing some of the blood on the wall and healing the wound. "We could blast through, but I figure this "Master" would notice that."

"Blood Magic," Dumbledore said, observing. "Very like Tom, to try to get his opponent to weaken themselves"

"That's what you said last time," Harry replied, stepping through the now-open wall and into the cavern proper. He wasn't keen on this place.

It was as he remembered. A vast dark cavern, filled with mirror-still water, with a small glowing font in the very centre on a rocky island. Barely visible beneath the surface of the water lay the Inferi – a horde of them, to protect the locket which was no longer there, replaced by a fake.

"What do you think we should do?" Harry asked Dumbledore, who was looking around with interest. "This "Master" does not seem to have shown up yet."

"I suggest we Disillusion ourselves and wait. It should not be long before the man we need shows himself. We should just hope he has the children with him. We can move down to the waterline, and conceal ourselves there, so we have a good view of the entrance."

Harry shrugged, moving somewhat away from the entrance and down the rock 'shore' towards the surface of the interior lake, followed by Dumbledore. Checking the entrance had resealed itself, leaving them in essentially pitch-black darkness, Harry raised his wand and tapped himself on the head, wordlessly casting a Disillusionment charm.

That was when all hell broke loose.

A deafening explosion launched him and Dumbledore off of their feet away from the shore in a roar of flame and white light. Harry was hurled upwards, slamming painfully into the wall above the door, before landing heavily on the rocks below, barely able to hear the _crack_ of his shoulder dislocating. His ears rang, his vision was blurred, and he tasted vomit and blood in his mouth. To his left, Dumbledore was seemingly unconscious, his silver hair stained red.

_What the fuck._

Harry rolled onto his back, still seeing double, and howled in pain as he leaned on his dislocated shoulder. Looking groggily down at his feet, towards the lake, he saw the surface of the water churning and frothing in the barely-perceptible gloom, with the Inferi beginning to rise to the surface.

He groped for his wand with his good arm, fingers scrabbling over wet rock, until he finally grasped the familiar length of wood. With a weak wave his left shoulder was wrenched back into its socket, with a ripping, tearing spike of pain. Harry cried out again, gritting his teeth, and tried to stand, stumbling weakly to his feet, still feeling dizzy, like he was drunk.

What the hell had happened? As soon as he'd used the first bit of magic in the cave it was like he'd been hit by a grenade... some sort of trap.

_Oh fuck._

He looked back at the entrance wall, his vision beginning to clear but his body and head still throbbing angrily, and was dismayed to see some blood smeared on it, but the entrance not responding.

Gathering his wits, and wary of the churning into the water which was approaching the shore, he weakly fell to his knees next to Dumbledore, and shook the old man's shoulders, checking his head. He had a thick, deep gash near his temple, and was breathing shallowly. Harry swore to himself. If only they hadn't been distracted by the cave itself, and idle banter, and actually done _something_ to ensure it was safe! Two and a half years of complacency had caught up to them, and not even Dumbledore's hundred and fifty years of magical experience could help him if he was surprised through not being thorough with entering a strange area.

Cupping Dumbledore's head in his hand and propping the venerable Headmaster up a bit, Harry whispered a healing spell, bringing his wand down the deep cut, closing it like a zipper. Dumbledore's breathing became more regular, but he was still unconscious. The man was ancient, and the injury had been severe – Harry was on his own.

He looked back at the lake, seeing the Inferi begin to rise from it.

He did a double take as he realised just how bad his situation was.

The first time he had been to this lake, all those years ago with Dumbledore, when the Headmaster had nearly died in the centre of the lake, relieving his worst memories from the foul potion in the centre of the bowl, the Inferi had been slow, cumbersome, crude – Voldemort's first attempt at the ritual. Dangerous, certainly, but not really to Harry as he was now.

These ones were like the fresh, powerful Inferi he had seen Voldemort conjure many times. Fast movers. And there were _dozens_ of them, from what he could see. A vast swarm coming from the lake, loping up the shore towards him. Someone had been here, and set a trap. A trap for him and Dumbledore.

"_ARCESSO FIENDFYRE_!" Harry roared, suppressing the pain and thrusting his wand forward. A fireball blew out of the end of the wand, bucking his arm slightly and crisping his eyebrows as it shot forward, resolving itself into a roaring lion. The first group of Inferi were incinerated with unearthly shrieks, with a great gout of steam billowing into the air as the water of the lake was instantly boiled by the Fiendfyre. Turning back towards the entrance wall, Harry whipped his wand forward with a flourish, shooting a ball of grey silvery light out of it which sunk into the stone. After a second it began to crack and flake, before a large section of it crumbled away as though it was ash, letting the sound of the ocean through and the smell of sea spray.

He turned to look at Dumbledore, poised to levitate the Headmaster's unconscious body out of the hellish cave, and the Anti-Apparition wards, to safety, before an Inferius barrelled into him, slamming him into the rocky ground with a howl.

Harry saw stars, the foul creature – probably some sort of adult male when it was alive, although now rotted and corpse-like – grabbing his hair and viciously slamming his head into the rocks once, twice, three times. He lashed out with an elbow, dislodging it from his back, before pushing it away and following up with a jet of oily, smokey fire from his wand. Barely able to see, blinded by blood from a cut above his eyebrow, Harry staggered backwards, seeing Dumbledore stir from the corner of his eye.

In an instant, another Inferius was upon him, its hands around his throat. He felt another grab his wand arm, forcing the wand from his grip. He fell on his back, on the black slippery stone.

If he had just had some _time_ to prepare himself, to get off a decent spell... the bony hands tightened, cutting off his air supply and causing him to get instantly light headed. His vision was completely dark in the cave, he felt the weight of the magical zombie on his ribcage, as more began to pin down his limbs and render him unable to move.

_Fuck, it can't end like this_, he thought to himself, trying to articulate a spell – any spell. He couldn't die in this cave, pinned down by Inferi, his nose full of their ungodly stench and his ears ringing with their moans and howls. His brain was oxygen starved, he needed to _breathe_. One breath, just one, needed to formulate the intent behind the spell to have a hope of casting something –

XxXx

"Wow, Harry, it's been a while," Ron said, leaning back on his chair and linking his hands behind his head.

Harry blinked, surprised. He was in what could only be described as a field of white. Endless white, nothing else visible bar himself and... Ron?

The Ron he had spent five years fighting with, running with. The Ron of his previous timeline, scarred facially, a werewolf. The Ron who had been crucified seconds before Harry had been flung into the past. Shaggy ginger hair, powerful build, and a haunted look on his face, dressed in black robes and sturdy leather boots.

"Ron?" he said weakly, sitting up on his elbows from where he was lying on the ground.

Ron gave him a little mock salute, letting the wooden chair clatter back onto all four legs.

"The very same. You didn't think I'd forgotten about you, did you? I mean I was always there for you during that Voldemort business , every time you got fucked up somehow."

Harry remembered those episodes of seeming madness. He had tried to block them out, tried to chalk them up to the trauma of the moment. Time and again he could have sworn he had seen Ron, and sometimes Hermione, talking and helping him.

"Anyway," Ron continued, nonchalantly, "you're pretty fucked, mate. They've got you pinned, your wand is gone, you can't verbalise a spell, and you've got about five more seconds before you black out entirely."

"So how am I talking to you, then?" Harry asked, still lying on the floor.

"Its your mind, mate!"

Harry nodded, slowly. "Right."

"As I was saying," Ron continued, leaning forward, his hands on his knees, "Hermione was pretty much always right when she said you often forget the simplest things in situations like these. Remember the three headed dragon?"

"When I got smashed into the wall and then manifested the aura?"

"The very same. What was that aura made of?"

"Well, sort of fire, I guess. Voldemort's was always stronger, and-" it dawned on him.

"There we go," Ron said, clapping mockingly. "You've got five seconds to pull it off. Do that inhalation thing, draw the magic into you, and try to manifest it. Its the only shot you've got."

Harry nodded. "When do I go back?"

Ron stood up, leaning over him, suddenly seeming much taller than he actually was.

"Now," he said, his voice a bit deeper than it was before, raising a leather-booted food and slamming it onto Harry's face.

XxXx

_One_

Harry heard his heart boom in his ears as he regained consciousness, still essentially blind but able to feel the Inferi pressing down on him. The gnarled hands were still crushing his larynx, rendering him unable to even consider drawing breath. His blood supply was totally cut off by the rotted fingers pressing into his neck, and his brain was shutting down.

_Two_

He focused deep within him with all he had left, feeling a warmth grow in his chest, and a tingling in his fingers, which were being pulled at harshly by more Inferi. He had been lifted off of the ground by the sheer mass of bodies trying to beat and grab at him. Panic lent him strength.

_Three_

Another heartbeat echoed around his brain as he tried to _inhale_, but not physically.

_Oh god please let this work._

_Four_

The warmth exploded out of his chest, rippling along his body and igniting the surface of his black combat outfit. Flames ignited on every inch of his skin, causing all the Inferi to relinquish their iron grips and scatter, howling and gibbering. Harry breathed, a breath which reminded him of the first he had taken upon being resurrected from his own Inferius half-life. It was a glorious feeling.

He coughed, spittle spraying over him and dribbling down his chin. He retched, throwing up up blood, as his vision began to return to him, dazzled by the magical fire playing over his body. He groped for his wand, finding it, and staggered backwards to his feet, leaning against a large rock for support as he weakly raised his wand.

The Inferi had retreated, and were watching him hungrily, the dark intelligence which fuelled them unable to overcome their basic instincts of fire phobia. Harry massaged his bruised throat with his free hand, glancing over at Dumbledore, who was thankfully unharmed aside from being trampled by rogue Inferi. It seems they were going for him, not the Headmaster. The light from his body played over the cavern walls, and he found himself getting rapidly exhausted trying to maintain it.

Keeping his wand trained on the Inferi, Harry summoned the last of his strength, wandlessly levitating Dumbledore's battered form towards him, and backing up towards the ragged hole in the cave wall which lead to safety. The Inferi just watched him, unblinkingly.

Finally, with one movement, he let the fiery aura fade, and ran through the cavern entrance with Dumbledore, before blasting the entrance with a bolt of azure force from his wand, sending rubble screaming down to plug the small hole, in a plume of dust. Then, with one last look at the ocean, he turned on his heel and Disapparated.

XxXx

_Almost_. The figure thought to himself. _It had almost worked_.

_Potter was always going to be too strong to die like that_, he thought, ruefully, as he finished up the preparations of the ritual. _But we threw him off the trail_. _Set up the idea of the false body ritual. They will pursue that fruitlessly, until my Master is ready. And it probably surprised him._

He levitated the remains of Gellert Grindelwald into the middle of the intricate series of different coloured circles he had drawn on the floor of the room he was in – a beautiful masterpiece of runes and Arithmancy. All copied from the journals which now lay on a table in the corner of the room.

He was in the ruins of an old, grand manor. One which had been recoverably burned two and a half years previously, by Harry Potter, Sirius Black and some Muggle soldiers.

The Riddle Mansion.

The figure had cleaned out the main dining room, one of the few rooms untouched by the fires which had ravaged the house, shrinking the table into the corner and removing the carpet to expose finely sanded oak panelled flooring, which he had covered in his runic masterpiece.

In the centre of the largest ring were the desiccated remains of Grindelwald. In two satellite rings linked by complicated lines of runes were the unconscious bodies of two schoolboys, the only people from the Muggle bus to show magical ability. One would otherwise have gone to Hogwarts, the other was essentially a Squib but had some sort of magical parentage somewhere.

Both, regardless, were filthy Mudbloods.

He knelt by the circles, checking and double checking the runes.

Finally, he stood, a small smile on his face.

The culmination of his Master's plan. _Resurrect the Dark Lord_, he had said, should anything happen to him.

He had picked his servant, his most loyal, powerful, servant. The servant who had earned 12 OWLs, endured Azkaban, broken some of the Light's most skilled Aurors and driven them to insanity. The servant who had supposedly been sent to death by his guilt stricken father, who could no longer keep up the pretence of trying to maintain his hold over his captive son.

The father who had concealed his son's escape from the Aurors who had taken him to be killed, in those freezing woods in Devon.

The father, Bartemius Crouch Sr.

The son, the servant of the Dark Lord, the kidnapper of the children, the man about to perform the darkest ritual ever devised, a ritual whose very casting had nearly broken Albus Dumbledore's mind when he created it. This time it would be fuelled by the children.

Barty Crouch, Jr. The Dark Lord's most faithful servant.

XxXx

_Grimmauld Place_

"Jesus _Christ_," Sirius breathed, as Harry Apparated into the drawing room at Grimmauld place, supporting Dumbledore over his shoulder and coughing up saliva mixed with blood, immediately collapsing to his knees.

Sirius swept aside the paperwork he had been doing, and got up to help Harry onto the couch, his face a picture of concern. He then levitated Dumbledore onto another ancient sofa, and grabbed some Floo powder from the mantelpiece to hurl into the fire, before shouting an address and sticking his head in.

"Moony! Moony, I need your help here. Harry and Dumbledore have run into trouble," he said, quickly, before pulling his head back out and standing over his Godson.

"Harry, what the _hell_ happened in that cave? You've been absolutely battered!" he said, kneeling and examining Harry's head and face, which was getting the bloom of a pair of black-eyes.

"Trap..." Harry mumbled, losing his grip on consciousness now that he was out of the cave. "Inferi. Explosion." He slumped backwards, still breathing but clearly needing to recover from the beating he had received from the horde of Inferi, not to mention the impromptu shoulder relocation.

Behind Sirius a brief flare of green fire heralded the arrival of Lupin, who immediately went over to Dumbledore, his face grim. After a frenzied series of wand movements, the tip lit up green, and he sighed, his face a picture of concern, but his actions more measured. He looked much healthier than he had when Harry had first met him in this timeline – Tonks had been a fantastic influence on him.

"He's fine, Sirius. Just a head injury, but he isn't unconscious because of that, I think it was just shock putting him out for now. No chance of any brain damage." Lupin said, having not even exchanged a greeting.

"Cheers, Moony," Sirius replied, not taking his eyes off of Harry, who he was currently seeing to with some basic spells. "_Episkey_," he muttered, moving his wand over Harry's face and almost sucking the bruises clean off of him as the tip of his wand glowed a warm orange. "Harry seems alright as well. But look at his neck," he said, indicating the clear finger-shaped bruises encircling Harry's swollen throat. "Something strangled him, and badly."

Lupin leant over, frowning. "Where did they actually go, Sirius? I wasn't aware we were in any sort of trouble which could warrant this." There was a hint of accusation in his tone.

Sirius sighed, standing up from his sleeping Godson. "Its a long story, Moony. Suffice to say we think someone is sniffing around Voldemort's old haunts, and one of his Death Eaters may be trying to pull off something Dark."

Lupin blanched. "Again? Merlin, can't he take a hint?"

Sirius shook his head. "It seems he prepared like only a madman could, for every eventuality."

Lupin sat down, next to Dumbledore's slumbering figure, and held his head in his hands.

"Can't we just have peace, for once?" he asked, to Sirius. "I thought we had it this time. And now Harry and Albus have this happen to them, and you seem to have no idea who did it or why."

Sirius sat down next to him, checking Harry was in a comfortable position. "Honestly, Moony, I have no idea why we can't seem to relax for a bit. That said, the two other people in this room are the kind of people we can count on to sort it all out."

Moon nodded gravely. "Do you think we should wait for them to wake up?" he said, quietly, looking at the slumbering wizards on the couches.

Sirius nodded with a sigh.

"I'll get the Firewhiskey."


	6. Chapter 5

**A/N: Read, Review!**

"_In this world, one day death is going to take the life from everything that you love."_

**Chapter Five – Excuses, Excuses**

_One Week Later_

_10 Downing Street, London_

"Consider this the end of cooperation between the Muggle and Magical worlds, Minister Scrimgeour," the Prime Minister said curtly, standing beside his desk, looking out of his window over the rooftops of London. Scrimgeour stood behind him, looking wan, his normally bushy hair looking relatively deflated.

"I know you are aware what happened. It seems we know what happened to the Home Secretary's son. He was found in his bed. All of his organs had been removed, and he had been sewn up again." The Prime Minister continued, his hands clasped behind his back, both of them shaking slightly. "While I appreciate the fact your _people_ intervened and wiped the Home Secretary's memory, and the memories of all involved bar myself, I did not give you authorisation to do this." The Prime Minister knew, really, he was in no position officially to give Scrimgeour any orders; frankly, with the powers the man wielded, it was the other way around. Anger gave him strength.

"I was unaware we needed it to uphold _our_ laws," Scrimgeour replied curtly, one hand on the back of the chair opposite the Prime Minister's oak desk.

"Have you studied any sort of politics in your lifetime, Minister?" the Prime Minister asked, still looking out of the window at the storm-grey clouds outside, which hung over the capital, swollen with potential rain.

Scrimgeour replied in the affirmative.

"Britain, that is Muggle Britain, has internationally and internally recognised sovereignty. To simplify this, the government, that is the democratically elected majority party in Parliament, has a power, through this sovereignty, to self-manage and be the ultimate authority. Now, the Wizarding World seems to have not grasped this concept." He spoke in carefully measured tones, still looking out of the window. Scrimgeour was apprehensive – it seemed that for this particular Prime Minister, two murdering wizards within three years was simply too many.

"We are doing the best we can, Prime Minister-"

"It is clearly _not good enough!_" the Prime Minister snapped, turning around, his blue eyes flashing behind his owlish glasses. Normally he was a mild mannered man in Parliament, some would call him weak, but in this case – when it came to the murder of a child he had known well – it was too much. "I am going to ask you _once_ and _once only_. Remove that portrait, leave me an alternative form of contact, one which is one way only. If these murders continue, I will do my utmost to hold the Wizarding World to account. You may believe you can play with my mind, or addle my senses, or control me with your powers, but I have contingency plans which you are unaware of."

_Shit_. Scrimgeour thought, trying not to show it on his face. He had assumed he could carry out an emergency Memory Charm on the Prime Minister, but this was too risky now.

"If I become aware of any mental tampering with me or my staff after this meeting, I will consider it an act of war." The Prime Minister continued. "We helped you two and a half years ago, and I lost a good deal of very well trained military personnel, and equipment. In return I expected you to keep a bloody lid on the radical elements of your population. You seem to be unable to do this, so that's it. If the non-magical world requires your aid, which I doubt it will, then I will contact you. Otherwise if I receive any communication from you I will likely ignore it." He turned back to the window.

"Get out of my office."

Scrimgeour gritted his teeth, anger rising in his chest. He did _not_ like being spoken to like that, but he knew he had been snookered by the Prime Minister, who was clearly smarter than he had given him credit. Scrimgeour did not like to think he had blood-prejudice, but it was hard not to look upon Muggles as generally less significant than wizards, if only because of their lack of magic. This, as they say, had come round to bit him in the arse.

With one last look at the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Scrimgeour strode over to the fireplace, taking the picture of the ugly man off of the way with a tap of his wand. Before he stood in the green flames, he took out a small velvet pouch from his robes pocket, tossing it onto the Prime Minister's desk. Inside was a small plain golden coin, which when tapped three times would alert him the Prime Minister wanted to see him.

With that, he was gone.

XxXx

"Harry!" Ron said, going up to his friend and giving him a hug – they were almost the same height now, with Ron having had a growth spurt to match Harry's unnatural aging. Harry smiled, and hugged his friend back, before doing the same to Hermione. They were standing just off of Oxford street, having been Portkeyed into a set of public toilets and met outside. Dumbledore was very good at arranging their trips out, generally into Muggle areas – they were all grateful for his hospitality.

"Alright, guys?" he said, with a smile. His bruises and injuries had been expertly healed by Sirius and Lupin, with a potion supplied begrudgingly by Snape. Dumbledore was also fine – the explosion from the magical trap had knocked him out on impact with the rocks, and he resolved to be more cautious in future.

They were no closer to figuring out what had happened to the children, and the gruesome redelivery of the bodies to their parents had not been easy to stomach. Dumbledore was positive they had been used in some sort of ritual, but in the absence of Harry's scar giving any clues about Voldemort, and a spell used to scry the Dark Lord showing that he was, indeed, still dead, they had drawn blanks. It had only been a week, but the Muggle-Magical fallout had not been pretty. Scrimgeour, whose birthday was in about a week and a half, was not happy.

"We're good," Ron said, falling into step beside Harry, with Hermione on the other side. "Revision is driving me mental, though."

"It would actually drive you mental if you _did any_, Ron," Hermione said with a frown, holding an umbrella up against the light rain that was drizzling down onto the shoppers. Harry laughed, steering Ron around a street lamp – his wizarding-raised friend was better at surviving on their Muggle trips out, though he still had to be careful pulling him out of the way of cars and trying to stop him staring at traffic lights and commenting loudly.

"I'll be fine," Ron said with a breezy air, as they walked into a coffee shop for a drink, something to eat and a talk. Generally their trips went like this – a catch up conversation, or failing that a trip out somewhere where they could have a good time and still catch up. Harry remembered a visit to a small theme park – Ron had never forgiven them for not telling him what it would be like. They ordered their drinks (Ron getting no small amount of help from an exasperated Hermione – over two years of trips and he was still a bit hopeless), and sat down in a corner table, away from eavesdroppers.

"So, apart from revision, how are things in the castle?" Harry asked, taking a sip.

"Same old, really. Ernie Macmillan and some girl from Ravenclaw are together, she's a Sixth Year," Hermione said. Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Would her name happen to be Tara Hayes?" he asked, with a small smile as he took a bite of his Danish pastry, smiling broader when he saw the look of surprise on Hermione's face.

"How would you know... oh. Time Travel?" she said, with a raised eyebrow back at him. Harry nodded, and Ron laughed.

"Who else hooks up, then?" he said, and Harry snorted into his drink. He hadn't told Ron and Hermione that they would be an item – he thought that would be too weird. As far as he knew they didn't even really like each other in that sense this time around, without Harry there things probably changed. They were friends, but Harry had often been a mediating influence. And the lack of death-defying adventures had probably stopped them being bonded by trauma.

A cheerful reflection on their relationship, he decided.

"Well..." he said slowly, stirring his coffee with a small spoon. He smiled wickedly. "What do you know about Lavender?"

Ron's eyes flicked to Hermione, almost nervously, as she frowned.

"She's a bit of an airhead," Hermione said. "Why?"

_Interesting_, thought Harry as Ron looked slightly reproachful at Hermione's critique of their classmate. _Seems he liked her before Sixth Year then_.

"Oh, nothing. She got together with someone interesting last time," he said with an air of mystery, waving away their protests for him not to leave them in suspense.

"Enough of the class politics," Harry continued. "How's Birch doing as the DADA professor?"

"Pretty damn good I'd say," Ron replied, drinking his drink with a loud slurp, much to Hermione's disgust. "He's much better than bloody Lockhart ever was."

Harry nodded, as Hermione agreed, fleshing it out a bit to tell him a bit about Birch's most recent lessons. He knew they liked him, but he was interested to see how Birch would handle OWL teaching. He had taught Harry in Harry's, lamentably short, Seventh Year.

They continued their conversation, complaining about Snape, praising the Duelling Club, which had been set up the previous year, and generally gossiping about their classmates (apparently Neville had a crush on someone, and they were all desperate to find out who – Harry secretly put his money on Ginny). Quidditch came up; Gryffindor were winning the House Leagues, but things were by no means a sure bet. Ron was considering trying out for Keeper; Harry wholeheartedly supported him, implying he knew something Ron didn't. They often played this game when they met up – Harry would tease them with his knowledge of how things had gone in the previous timeline.

After a good hour and a half of amiable discussion, they got back up and headed to the public toilets they had emerged from, before sharing goodbyes. As he watched them enter the building, reaching into their pockets for the Portkeys which would take them back to Hogwarts, Harry reflected on the relationship he had with his friends.

These meetings were nice, there was no doubt about it, but he could never shake the feeling that these _weren't_ his friends. This Ron and Hermione had been exposed to some drama, there was no doubt about that, but he seriously doubted they would be able to handle some of the things his previous Ron and Hermione had dealt with. Maybe their bond in the previous timeline was one of mutual shared horror?

Resolving not to self-analyse, he entered the filthy public toilet himself. Hopefully Tonks would have some leads for him to chase up; if not, hopefully he could do some more work on his animation magic.

XxXx

_Three days later_

"I'll have a shot of white sambuca, he'll have a double vodka, and they'll each have a glass of that red," Harry said, with a smile at the attractive blonde bartender, as he handed over a crisp twenty pound note, telling her to keep the change. Smoothing his shirt, carrying the three drinks expertly (with a little help from a Sticking charm), he turned back and carried them across the relatively full bar towards the table in the corner where Sirius and two rather nice brunette law students were waiting.

They had been frustrated by no further leads on the Muggle child kidnap case – the Ministry now had a small team of Aurors working specifically on it, with Tonks heading it up. Sirius and Harry had decided to cut their losses and head to a fashionable bar in Piccadilly, to unwind. So far it was going well.

He doled out the drinks with a smile, before taking his seat next to one of the students – was her name Janine? He would have to listen to what her friend called her – and taking the shot with a flourish. He was already a bit drunk, he knew, though not as much as Sirius, who was beginning to flirt outrageously and let his hand wander up and down the other girls' leg.

To the man's credit, she was not resisting. Quite the opposite, from what Harry could see. His godfather knew what he was doing.

He started up some idle chitchat with the other girl – definitely Janine, he remembered – about what she wanted to do after law school. In truth he was now half-listening, as he could see a man at the bar looking at him, and only him.

The man looked like he had just come in from the rain outside – it was quite a shower tonight – and still had the hood of his expensive-looking black raincoat up, making his face cloaked in shadow. He was drinking what looked like whisky, his obscured eyes not leaving Harry's face.

"Sorry, Janine," he said, interrupting her as she was describing a proposed trip to Peru, "I'm really sorry, but I just need the bathroom – do you want another drink while I'm at it?"

Janine replied, with a dazzling smile, that that would be perfect. One thing Harry had noticed was that the two they had picked up tonight were clearly not inexperienced drinkers.

He got up, heading ostensibly for the bathroom, passing by the bar and the hooded man. The man's head turned to follow him, a small smile clear on what was visible of his lower face, which was marked with blond stubble. Harry kept a look out of the corner of his eye, before actually going to the bathroom. When he left, the man was gone.

Very odd.

When he got back to the table, with another class of wine for Janine, he noticed a small silver tray with another shot of sambuca, and a folded up note.

"The bartender brought it over, she said it was from a friend," Janine explained, accepting the fresh wine. Harry frowned, sitting back down and opening up the note.

_Potter,_ it read. Not a good start, very few people knew he was even alive.

_Tumblehill farm, Somerset. Field four, fifteen metres from the south dry wall, ten from the eastern wall. You have one hour before I move it._

"Odd," Harry frowned, folding the note back up, a gnawing feeling of suspicion growing in his stomach, cutting through the pleasant alcoholic haze. "Hey Sirius," he said, causing his godfather to look up from his not-so-subtle glances down his companions' top. "I think I'm going to have to take a rain check on this one."

Sirius looked reproachful, as did Janine.

"Why?" he asked.

"Just got a letter which I think is about our current project," Harry said, lacing his words with no small hint. Sirius nodded, still looking fuddled by the alcohol.

"Right, right." He turned to the two students. "Did I mention what we did? Work for Interpol. Harry here is currently tracking a serial murderer from Argentina." The two girls' eyes widened, looking at Harry in a new light, who merely smiled and shook his head.

"I don't like to boast," he admitted. "I do have to go, however. I'm very sorry, ladies, but I think my godfather can probably look after you."

He got up, grabbing his coat and smoothing down his white dress shirt, before making for the door. Janine followed him, tottering on black heels. As he reached out for the door, she put her hand on his, and he turned to face her.

"Call me." She said simply, before giving him a very deep kiss. Harry, slightly thrown off balance, agreed to do just that as soon as he was done, before gathering enough presence of mind to give her a wink and open the door, stepping out into the damp rain, wandlessly casting a Sobriety charm on himself – something normally only taught to DMLE workers, and generally closely guarded for fear of alcohol abuse (it didn't remove the alcohol in your system, just the effects).

_Not bad, Potter_, he thought to himself. _Still got it._

XxXx

_Tumblehill Farm_

_10 minutes later_

"Fucking weather," Harry grumbled, squinting up at the storm that had turned this part of Somerset into a quagmire, dimly lit in the cold night air. His shoes were ruined; he spelled the rest of his clothing to be waterproof and surveyed this farm before him. The note had said field four – he assumed that the makeshift sign (more just two bits of wood nailed together) that had a number four spraypainted onto it meant he was in the right place.

He didn't have much time to fetch anyone else. Whatever the note meant, it needed investigation. He felt confident enough to handle anyone trying to do him harm; this wasn't the Horcrux cave – he was prepared this time.

He squelched forward, counting steps from the south wall where he had Apparated to. The field was currently fallow, its neighbours finely ploughed.

Harry reached the spot where the note had said. He squinted at it again, through the pounding rain which plastered his hair to his head. It was written in, from what he could tell, masculine handwriting. Diagnostic spells which he had cast once out of the bar had yielded nothing.

With a shrug, he whipped his wand around himself to layer defences onto his skin. He was wary after the cave.

Next he pointed his wand at the muddy ground, before whispering an incantation which shifted out a large quantity of claggy soil, exposing something pale and white, pointing up at the stormy sky.

"Ah, _shit_," Harry muttered. It was a hand. A human hand, poking up out of the muddy earth, swiftly being submerged under a layer of filthy water.

He whispered another spell, moving more earth into a small sloppy pile to one side. As the rain beat down, filling up the small hole he had excavated with muddy water, he managed to levitate the body out. He took a look around; no one in sight. Just farmland, divided up by low walls and hedges, as far as the eye could see – not very far in this weather, admittedly.

He lay the corpse down, face first, in the mud, before refilling the hole. The body was dressed in robes – a wizard? It had messy black hair from the back. Harry rolled it over, and gasped in shock.

It was him. Harry Potter. Or a corpse made up to look like him. The corpse looked like it had been killed with the Killing Curse, and Harry felt a curious warmth being given off by it. He looked closer, seeing it was wearing a silver necklace of some description under its muddy black robes. Trying to ignore the fact he was staring himself in the face, he gingerly pulled out the necklace, the source of the warmth, before immediately diving backwards and erecting a defensive shield.

The bronze pendant, which had been inscribed with minute but numerous Blasting Runes, detonated, tearing the corpse apart in a spray of blood, mud and filth, making Harry's ears ring. The rain drowned out most of the noise, swiftly filling the new crater with rainwater, and the stench of death filled Harry's nostrils as he tried to wipe the bits of... himself, off of himself.

_What the hell_? He thought, glancing around at the scraps of flesh and robes that now littered the surrounding area. Deciding this was too weird, even for him, he summoned most of the flesh together, checked around the area one last time, and turned on his heel to Disapparate, the rotted and blackened flesh coming with him.

XxXx

_Two Hours Later_

"It appears our enemy is trying to confuse us or demoralise us," Dumbledore observed, as Scrimgeour ran a hand through his hair.

"That corpse was just of some random homeless Muggle, made to look made up like Harry. Whoever this guy is, he knows you're alive, Harry. That is _not_ a good thing." Scrimgeour said.

"It was fucking surreal," Harry replied, staring at Dumbledore's desk. "I was just in the bar, saw this hooded guy, got the note, and then suddenly it was just an exploding corpse!"

"What is obvious is that that trap was not meant to kill you, Harry. It was meant to send a message – a statement that this "Master" knows we are onto him, knows Harry is involved, and assumes he is one step ahead of us." Dumbledore said, looking at Scrimgeour. "Minister, I assume you have upped security at your birthday?"

Scrimgeour nodded absently.

"Full Auror detail, spell scannings, checking for Polyjuice, the works. I'll have a Portkey on me at all times, and a bandoleer of potions. Plus it's in Germany, anyway, so I doubt we'll have that many problems," he answered. "We have Aurors working on the children case. I'll tell Auror Tonks about this, but not anyone else. Too weird if we have Harry Potter's corpse turning up in a field and exploding."

"The field, incidentally, seems to be of no significance," Dumbledore said to Harry. "I feel it was simply a convenient location."

Harry grimaced, glancing at Fawkes, who was staring at him with beady black eyes. The Headmaster's office was quiet – most of the portraits knew to be out of the room when Harry was there. The window was shut, and the grounds outside were barely visible in the night air. It was tidier than Harry had seen it – two and a half years of peace had lightened Dumbledore's workload – although there were still myriad eclectic devices scattered around.

"We need to work out who this guy is, and what he actually wants. He's driven a rift between Muggles and Wizards already," Scrimgeour winced at Harry's words, "although he doesn't seem to want to resurrect Riddle. Which leaves us firmly in the dark."

"No update on who the mystery powerful Death Eater is, or was, either," Scrimgeour said to his fellow wizards. "We speculate he probably rejoined Voldemort, and died in an ensuing battle, and we just didn't pick up on it."

"Do you think we should contact the old crowd...?" Harry left the question hang in the air. Dumbledore paused for a moment, where he was standing behind his desk next to Fawkes, and shook his head.

"We may have to reform the Order, but only when we know what we are facing. This "Master" may turn out to be something you, or I, or both of us can handle, Harry." The implications were clear – Dumbledore had not been happy about the murdered children.

"I'll do my best to patch things up with the Prime Minister," Scrimgeour promised, as he moved back towards the fireplace. "Hopefully I won't have to see you two until next week. Dumbledore, Harry – you know how to contact me if you need anything, and vice versa. Good night," Scrimgeour said with a firm nod, as he threw Floo powder into the fireplace and span off towards his office.

"Well that's my night ruined," Harry said, with a remorseful look as he idly picked up a lemon drop from the bowl on Dumbledore's desk. Dumbledore smiled a mischievous smile.

"There will be other girls, Harry. I wouldn't worry about that."

Harry flicked his eyes up to meet the Headmaster's.

"Indeed. But I would prefer to be currently enjoying Janine's company, rather than guessing over which madman made a corpse that looked like me explode. Or even which madman it _is_ this time."

"It's never easy. I don't think it ever has been, I don't think it ever will be. Fighting Grindelwald in the 1940s was similar in its taxing nature."

"I don't think I've ever actually heard you talk about that one, Professor," Harry said, curious. He had read of the final battle; occurring in the skies and streets of ruined Berlin, as the Red Army blew the place to hell and back in their final assault. The Muggles had been perplexed to find a square kilometre of factory district totally gutted when they arrived, having had no artillery or strikes targeted on the area. Wizards knew better. Some of the powers summoned in that battle were, even to Harry, staggering. It was said nothing would ever grow again in that spot of the city.

Dumbledore paused for a beat. "I don't think I will be discussing that particular period of my life, Harry. It is something I would rather forget."

Harry longed to pressure the Headmaster, but thought better of it, nodding in understanding.

"What disguise am I using for this birthday party?" he asked, moving towards the fireplace. He just wanted to sleep after tonight. He could touch base with Sirius tomorrow and find out how his night went. Maybe he would even call Janine.

"Most likely something unobtrusive; a random Muggle's hair, and we'll claim you're a cousin of Sirius', or somesuch. He is, incidentally, invited. Rufus is making a big deal of the first major Ministry event since Voldemort's downfall, aside from the celebrations. He wants to ensure Sirius was there to make it look like the Ministry is truly sorry for his incarceration."

"How political of him," Harry said with a small smirk. "I'll keep in touch, Headmaster. Hopefully I won't have to see you again before next week; I hope even more that we get a handle on all this."

Dumbledore nodded solemnly.

"As do I, Harry."

Fawkes trilled, as Harry stepped into the Floo, a burst of pure Phoenix song.

Dumbledore sat down at his desk, picking up a fine eagle quill.

"I agree, old friend," he murmured. "I quite agree."


	7. Chapter 6

**Sorry this has taken so long – combination of University and illness!**

**Read, enjoy, review!**

"_Murder begins where self-defence ends."_

**Chapter 6 – The Birthday Party**

Rufus Scrimgeour, Minister of Magic, was turning fifty-five. Surprisingly young for a Minister; yet he certainly looked his age. Lion-like and weatherbeaten, the man had presided over the Aurors and then the Ministry during arguably the most turbulent period of wizarding history since the Muggle Second World War. It had greyed his hair and put lines on his hard, serious face, yet he had survived it. Not everyone could claim that much.

Normally such an event would be marked by a banquet in London, but recent stirrings of a rift between Muggles and Wizards had caused it to be relocated to Anglesey, a large island off of the north-west coast of Wales. Scrimgeour had relatively distant family there – cousins – and they had graciously offered their familial mansion for the occasion. It was a moderately sized ancestral home – not quite as grand as Malfoy Manor or the old Prewett castle, but it served its purpose well as a reception for events.

There was to be a large dinner, with several hundred guests, followed by a masked ball and a series of speeches by magical dignitaries. Several foreign VIPs would also be attending, despite the notably isolationist policy Britain had followed after the lack of international support over the Voldemort fiasco. Dumbledore, the Supreme Mugwump, had damned the International Confederation for their cowardice; several representatives had resigned in shame, and most countries had contributed not insignificant amounts of gold, manpower and resources to helping Britain recover from Voldemort's onslaught. Despite this the general feeling in the wizarding world of Britain, two and a half years on, was that the international community were essentially cowards.

The fact that this was one of the first major international events since Voldemort's second Uprising also leant weight to the occasion. The Ministry was under pressure to pull it off without a hitch. No one, that is no one except Scrimgeour and some Aurors who knew what had happened to the Muggle children a week or so before, expected any trouble.

Voldemort was dead, that had been confirmed. The immolation of his cadaver and its scattering in the sea had been a widely viewed event – people seeking closure had made sure they had witnessed it. So, frankly, there shouldn't _be_ any trouble. Scrimgeour's approval ratings had been pretty much consistently high since the end of that Uprising, and it looked like he should ride through the next set of elections when they happened.

Despite all that... Harry Potter was going to be at the party. And, as generally everyone who knew the time-travelling, ex-undead, ex-vigilante would attest, trouble tended to follow him.

XxXx

"Hmm... not bad looking, really," Harry said, inspecting himself in the smooth mirror which was floating lazily in the air in front of him. He and Sirius were getting ready for the Minister's birthday that evening, in Harry's living room. Harry had just taken the Polyjuice, and he had to commend Dumbledore on his choice of Muggle – the man looked very much like Harry, except slightly taller and with a neat beard, and shorter hair. The resemblance was akin to that of a brother, or an uncle – there was _something_ there, but it wasn't quite Harry. As far as everyone was concerned, Harry was Nathan Lancaster, a second cousin of the Minister who worked in the Ministry embassy in Washington D.C, specialising in sports relations.

"Yeah, it does look quite like you," Sirius mused, as he shrugged on some dress robes. Harry was dressed in a nice set of deep green robes with a silver trim – a bit Slytherin, he thought, but it did suit him. Sirius was clad in dark red with a similar silver cut.

Sirius, Harry had to say, was unrecognisable from two and a half years previously. Azkaban had left the handsome man a wizened, hollow wreck, yet now it was clear that the charm and good looks which had captured the hearts of many of Sirius' contemporaries had returned. His face was fresh and full of life, his hair no longer lank, and his physique back to normal after his emaciation in the prison.

Harry checked a golden clock hanging on the wall – a present from Dumbledore, with decorative runes and a small phoenix on the minute hand. They had an hour before they were officially due to present themselves in Anglesey, but they intended to meet Dumbledore and go with him.

As they finished up the last ministrations – applying aftershave, final cleaning charms, checking they had everything they needed such as invitations and Harry's topup for Polyjuice – Harry paused, voicing a thought he had been harbouring since they started preparing themselves.

"Do you reckon we'll have any trouble tonight?"

Sirius looked at him, fixing a pair of silver cufflinks. "Being honest, I can't say either way. We haven't heard anything more about the kids since you found that exploding body, but that doesn't mean this "master" is lying low."

Harry nodded, frowning. "That's what I thought. Well it can't hurt to keep our wits about us tonight."

"Amen to that, kid," Sirius replied, giving himself a final once over in the floating mirror. "Although when you say 'keep our wits about us', I feel that goes up to the point where we find some impressionable cousins of the Minister. Then we firmly put our wits about _them_."

Harry chuckled, Vanishing the mirror and moving over to the fireplace to grab some Floo powder. "When you put it like that, I feel we can relax Constant Vigilance for one night..."

XxXx

"Is the place secure?" Robards asked a subordinate, standing in a large converted drawing room inside the mansion where the party was being held. The subordinate, a slight young man with a pencil moustache and slicked down hair – a paper pusher if Robards ever saw one – flicked his wand delicately over a floor plan of the four storey mansion (five, if you counted the cellar). After a few minutes of scrutinising various red and blue lines which overlaid themselves onto the map, the subordinate nodded.

"Its secure," he said in a nasal voice. "In terms of wards and detection spells, at any rate."

Robards nodded, satisfied, before moving across the room to the team of a dozen Aurors and two dozen DMLE wizards who would be monitoring the party. They were all currently talking quietly amongst themselves, but when their superior approached they stiffened and stood to attention.

The room they were in had housed a rather lavish collection of various vases, but they had all been put into storage to make room for the security detail – bags of equipment, tables with maps on, and a pair of special chairs for detaining any troublemakers. A rack of potions had been stuck onto one of the walls with various remedies for common problems – drunkenness being just one of them.

"Right, ladies and gentlemen," Robards began, "this shouldn't be a tough night. It's going to be a lot of the rich and famous getting drunk in honour of the Minister. Just keep an eye out for any troublemakers, especially from the press. This should be a cinch compared to what we're used to out there."

Robards was a tall man, the replacement for Scrimgeour as head of the Auror corps. Blond, German and well built, he had a face which earned him interest with many of the female members of the DMLE, and the Ministry in general. A young rising star – barely 27 – he had made a very good name for himself abroad on various diplomatic assignments, before really proving himself fighting Death Eaters in Voldemort's second Uprising.

The various Aurors and DMLE personnel nodded in agreement, before Robards dismissed them with a wave of his hand – they all went to take up positions by the two entrances to the mansion and by various high traffic points (such as outside bathrooms, and at Portkey destinations).

The Mansion should be fully secure, in theory. None of the guests, bar one specially cleared ViP (Harry, although Robards didn't know this – he had been told a man was disfigured in a potions accident and so preferred to maintain Polyjuice disguises), would be able to sneak so much as a Hair-darkening charm past them without them knowing.

Of course, with all great security networks, there is usually a weakness.

This time, it was the servants.

XxXx

_Later_

"So Mr. Lancaster, when do you think the next World Cup will be held?" a man sitting opposite Harry asked, taking a deep draught of wine and leaning forward intently.

"Well..." Harry began, trying to piece together a plausible lie, "with this Voldemort business out of the way, the Department of Magical Games and Sports feels that Britain can contribute again to Quidditch internationally, so the whole process is beginning now – we're thinking we might hold it near Chicago."

The man opposite him, a big figure in cauldron manufacture, from what Harry could gather, mopped his sweating bald head with a hankerchief and adjusted his too-tight mauve dress robes, which clung to his paunch. They were the main dining room, a cavernous wood-panelled and carpeted room the size of the Great Hall at Hogwarts, with a plethora of small candlelit tables scattered around which seated around half a dozen people each, all of whom were chatting merrily. Enchanted wine bottles floated around the room topping up drinks, and various servants in cream robes strode around the room, seeing to requests and cleaning up plates and glasses with a wave of their wands.

In each corner a grim faced Auror stood, looking out on proceedings.

Harry himself was with Sirius and three other strangers on a table next to the Minister's large table in the centre of the room, where Dumbledore, Amelia Bones and various important people were amiably having a discussion over their food, slightly pink from the alcohol.

The food was delicious; as per usual wizarding banquets it was a case of requesting what you wanted and having it materialise on the golden plates in front of you; very much like the Yule Ball from Harry's previous timeline.

So far the entire meal had been pleasant, and nothing untoward had even been hinted at. Harry had allowed himself to relax, and was enjoying watching Sirius flirt, rather dangerously in his opinion, with the wife of a broom magnate whose husband was on another table.

If the man didn't watch out, Harry thought as he watched his Godfather crack a joke to the amusement of the whole table, he'd end up in St. Mungos this time, not Azkaban.

The meal had been going on for an hour and a half, and people were beginning to finish. Desserts were currently on most people's plates – Harry was currently sampling some apple tart – and the conversations had turned very light hearted, a reflection of the amount of good quality wine consumed. Scrimgeour was slowly turning red, a huge smile on his face as he continued to drink.

Suddenly there was the tinkling of a spoon rapping against a glass, magically amplified – it was time for the speeches. The room went quiet, looking as first Amelia Bones got to her feet.

The speech she gave was relatively short, but very poignant, in Harry's opinion – it primarily concerned praising Scrimgeour for his work during the second Uprising, especially the tough decision to order executions of suspects; Harry wouldn't have thought Scrimgeour had had it in him, judging by the previous timeline.

Crouch was nodding along with this, as was most of the room. At the end there was polite applause, and then Dumbledore got to his feet; the venerable Headmaster was dressed in splendid azure robes with a sky blue trim, with a stereotypically large wizards hat atop his head. Smiling, eyes twinkling behind his half-moon glasses, he began.

"Friends, I welcome you here to celebrate dear Rufus' birthday under circumstances I had feared we would not see. It has been two and a half years since the fall of Lord Voldemort," there were still some very minor winces from some of the older members of the assembly, "and I feel I speak for all of us when I say at the time it was uncertain whether we would pull through."

"Rufus was our leader during this time, negotiating with the Muggles for help, taking tough decisions and working tirelessly with the Auror corps and DMLE to secure peace, even fighting on the front lines during the final assault on the Ministry of Magic, which claimed many lives. As an old man I am often fond of repeating myself; but I feel it is not flippant to say that on that occasion Rufus certainly chose what was right above what was easy. Happy birthday, Minister," he said, with a small smile, raising his crystal glass to more applause.

Finally it was Crouch's turn – the neat pencil-moustached official got up stiffly and began to pay his respects to the Minister. Harry didn't quite know what to make of Crouch; the man was a fanatic in his hatred of the Dark, yet Harry knew he had hidden his son away for years with no qualms. His battle prowess was also nothing to laugh at, but Harry had seen better. He had generally avoided Crouch, knowing that he had been Memory Charmed after the second Uprising, as frankly he was the type to ask too many questions about Harry.

Harry's gaze wandered – the slightly heavy feeling of alcohol was making it hard to hold his concentration, although he was far from drunk. He looked at the Aurors in the corner, who were watching Crouch, along with the servants who were all lined against the wall, in their cream robes, also watching Crouch along with the over a hundred guests, all of whom were turned to face the Minister's central table.

That was, everyone except two servants. One of them was a dark skinned man with a shaven head – he reminded Harry of Kingsley, who was moving smoothly between the tables gathering up empty glasses, but Harry noticed he wasn't taking his eyes off of Crouch. And he was approaching the Minister's table.

The other servant was harder to make out. Harry squinted at the man's face – the lighting had been slightly turned down everywhere except over the Minister's table for the speech, and the man was about twenty metres away. The more Harry looked, the more he realised that he couldn't see the man's face, or focus on it. A spell.

He nudged Sirius, and nodded his head at the two servants, as Crouch spoke on passionately about his experiences in the second Uprising and how it was fantastic the wizarding world had come through it all.

"Charm similar to that_ Muffliato_ spell, except its visual," Sirius whispered, scowling – he didn't like to think about the spells Snape had created.

"Reckon we should do something?" Harry said, watching the two men slowly weave between the tables, collecting cutlery and glasses. No one seemed to be paying them any heed – Harry was actually finding it harder and harder to focus on them.

_A charm!_

"Sirius, this is-" he began, only to see the bald dark-skinned man suddenly change before his eyes, as the man was only five metres from the Minister's table, and ten meters from Harry.

His skin, currently ebony, changed and warped into pasty white flesh. His head, previously bald, sprouted straw-blonde hair like some sort of bizarre cornfield growing in fast motion. His face warped, changed – freckles blossomed on his cheeks, his eyes became sunken and cold, and an unmistakable sneer twisted his mouth into a cruel smile.

Barty Crounch Jr. And his wand was aiming at his father.

"_CROUCH!"_ Harry roared, launching himself out of his chair and stepping on the back of Amelia Bones' chair to launch himself over her and onto the Minister's table, landing hard on his stomach and scattering cutlery everywhere – he winced as he felt a fork pierce his side but ignored it as he slammed into Bartemius Crouch Sr., knocking the old man to the floor as a curse soared over his head and into the opposite wall, where it burst into angry blue flames and began to consume a tapestry depicting goblins fighting centaurs.

XxXx

_Earlier_

The two men had found it almost too easy to enter the mansion. Layered with Notice-Me-Not charms and other repelling hexes, along with Polyjuice, they had... forcefully assumed the identities of two servants working for the company hired to organise the party. The Aurors hadn't checked the servants properly; a critical error.

The two men were Barty Crouch Jr. and his Master, both disguised – Barty with Polyjuice, his Master with a cunning charm which reduced his face to something akin to Muggle television static or pixellation – you simply couldn't make out any details.

It wouldn't do for his quarry to see his face before he struck them down.

Barty shuddered with anticipation as they stood in the kitchens of the mansion, supervising sweating House Elves as they toiled over various culinary delights. His Master was more powerful than he had ever dreamed; more powerful than anything he had ever witnessed. He was still regenerating, certainly, but he had more than enough power to smite both Dumbledore and Potter, if they were at the party.

It had been so _hard_ at first, when the Dark Lord had been killed. The instructions which had been seared into his brain had pounded insistently away.

_RESSURECT THE DARK LORD. _

_ RESSURECT THE DARK LORD._

He had tried to make them stop, tried Occlumency, potions, everything. It was like the Dark Mark on his forearm – permanent and never ending, like a constant drum beat eating away at his mind. He had tried to hide from it, but he knew he needed to obey it, somehow.

So he had thought long and hard, his mind pounded and buckling under the pressure of the orders seared into his higher brain functions, and decided he could resurrect _a_ Dark Lord.

And so he had. When he actively pursued his task, the incessant noise had lessened, allowing him to think that little bit clearer. That little bit saner.

He had got the sacrifice together, acquired Dumbledore's notes, and used the cultists to fuel some of the rituals and make a body for his Master, before finally ripping his Master's soul from the otherworld and pushing it into the new body, using the magical children he had taken from that bus.

The noise had then stopped in his mind, the spell fulfilled, if only to the letter and not to Voldemort's intent. Barty had had blessed relief, and he had gotten to witness the awesome power of his new Master; a Master who needed no servants, and had only been stopped through a series of events which were widely considered to be unrepeatable.

A Master who, through the rituals used, could shrug off the most grievous of wounds and wield the most potent of magics.

A Master who had promised him his father's death – his traitorous, Muggle-loving father who had held him against his will.

As far as Barty Crouch Jr. was concerned, he had certainly chosen the right side. And as he entered the main dining hall, walking past an oblivious Auror with his Master at his side, making a beeline for his father as he gave a speech, the most loyal Death Eater of them all had never been more content.

Well, there was the time he had tortured the Longbottoms. That came close.

XxXx

At first there was absolutely no movement, only a dumbfounded series of looks at Barty Crouch Jr. – even Dumbledore was caught off guard.

The next thing that happened was even more surprising. A powerful lance of silver energy, seemingly from nowhere thanks to the charms the strange man had used, rocketed forward, striking Dumbledore in the chest – to his credit the old mage had managed to conjured up a half-formed nexus of red energy in the half-second it had taken the bolt of power to reach him, but he was still blown backwards over his chair and onto the ground, his beard singed and his breathing short as his burnt clothing absorbed the worst of the damage.

A man appeared, standing in the middle of four tables full of shocked people, his face a blur of magic. Slowly but surely he raised a black gloved hand – himself also clad in the cream robes of the servants – to his face, waving his fingers to dispel the magic.

The face that was revealed was one which elicited two reactions, from separate sections of the assembled guests.

For those of the older generation, plus the students of history and Harry himself, there were a series of disbelieving shrieks, cries and swearing.

For those of the slightly younger generation, and the historically ignorant, there was very little extra reaction beyond the fact that this man, whoever he was, had just laid out Albus Dumbledore with a single spell, and seemed to have a partner who had just tried to kill Crouch.

Harry stood up, still in Polyjuice, Crouch Sr. scrambling to his feet beside him. The Aurors in the room had all drawn their wands and aimed them at the man who had just revealed himself, though most of them were hesitant to act, recognising him and barely able to believe it.

Gellert Grindelwald was standing in the middle of the dining room, with over a hundred people looking at him.

Gellert Grindelwald, scourge of Europe during the Muggle Second World War – a wizard with arguably the highest personal kill count in the history of recorded magic. A wizard who had, aside from Voldemort, come the closest to seizing control of a country through sheer terrorism. A wizard who had been duelled by Albus Dumbledore in the ruins of Berlin as the Red Army sacked the city, only defeated through an ancient spell and use of the better part of an entire Muggle munitions factory store. The duel was legendary for a reason.

He was a tall, broad man, with blonde slicked back hair and aquiline features, sporting a small goatee which was neatly trimmed, and wearing a haughty smile on his face. His eyes, small and icy blue, squinted at Harry, apparently not recognising him in his disguise. In his hand was a wand – Grindelwald's wand, destroyer of many families – and he held it lazily, but clearly ready to spring to action. Below his robes his body seemed to be moving and shifting – perhaps he was not back to full strength just yet.

Harry stood looking at him, his mind churning with the possibilities. It just seemed so laughably, ludicrously unbelievable. Gellert Grindelwald, _here_? In the party? With _Barty Crouch Jr._, who had been recorded dead? This was the kind of thing that happened in dreams; surely Harry would realise he was naked in a minute, and that he had a test he'd missed? Historical figures of nightmare did not simply go to birthday parties! Someone, clearly, had not told Grindelwald this.

But no, it seemed all too real. The rise and fall of Grindelwald's chest as he stared Harry in the eyes. Dumbledore's laboured breathing behind Harry, and Crouch's quiet splutters of fear. Scrimgeour looked stunned, his now-ruddy face a comical display of total shock.

After one more beat, all hell broke loose. People began to scream and shout, getting to their feet and activating Portkeys. Grindelwald stood still, his wand still in his hand, as Amelia Bones saw to Dumbledore. In fifteen seconds of frenzied activity, shouting and knocking over tables and chairs, with people getting thrown into walls and Portkeying away, the room was essentially empty. The vast majority of the guests were not fighters in any regard, and were very panicky, especially those who had lived through the first and second Uprisings (which was most of them). The Aurors tried to keep things calm but were unable to stem the tide of people – the doors had also been sealed shut by blue bands of light once the servants had run out of them, preventing physical entry and Apparition but apparently allowing premade Portkeys to work, which most people of this social status carried on them as a matter of course. It was a quick and dirty bit of ward work on the doors. It seemed they were on their own. Everyone who had Portkeyed away would be rerouted to a holding area by the main house wards – they would be sorted out there.

Harry, Sirius, Dumbledore, Amelia Bones, Crouch, Scrimgeour, the Aurors and two wizards who looked stern – Unspeakables, Harry realised, were left in the room, along with Barty Crouch Jr. and, of course, Grindelwald.

Crouch Jr. was looking fanatical, his wand still raised and the tip of it glowing blue.

"_Freeze!_" shouted one of the Aurors, an uncompromising-looking gentleman with a body like a professional wrestler. He whipped his wand through the air from his position at the corner of the room, about thirty or forty metres away, and thick chains of light spiralled out and made a beeline for Grindelwald and Crouch Jr. An incredibly powerful restraining spell, Harry absently noted, his eyes still on Grindelwald.

Grindelwald didn't even turn his head or acknowledge the spell – it just failed to hit him, spiralling off into the ceiling when it got anywhere near him or Crouch Jr. In response, he looked at the Auror and slowly blinked.

The Auror was thrown sharply back into the wall – not an overwhelmingly powerful display of magic, but effective when combined with the fact that the Auror's head had subsequently cracked hard into the panelled wood of the dining room, sending him into unconsciousness.

Harry was dimly aware of Amelia Bones' whispered ministrations to Dumbledore – a spell like that might have internally damaged the old man. Between this and the blasted cave Harry was becoming more and more aware of Dumbledore's frailties – the old man could wield power enough to move mountains, but his physical body was still that of a one hundred and fifty year old human; he simply couldn't take hits that Harry or even Voldemort could. He needed to fight on his own terms more and more, and was vulnerable to ambush.

He frantically dredged up every fact he knew of Grindelwald. A ferocious dueller, a notable utilise of rituals to enhance his power – he was supposed to have been stronger on a raw level than Voldemort, but was less charismatic and thus overall less effective in driving a cause like Voldemort had.

Pretty fucking useless when you were staring down someone who was essentially a historical villain come to life. And he wasn't saying anything.

"What... what is this?" Scrimgeour said weakly, still under the effects of several glasses of wine. Grindelwald didn't even acknowledge he had spoken.

"I sense you," Grindelwald said simply to Harry, in German accented English. "Your potions do not hide you from me."

Harry tensed, flicking his eyes at the Aurors who were slowly crossing the room, wands raised as they picked their way over fallen chairs.

"You know why I am here," Grindelwald continued, his voice deep and smooth as he idly played with his wand in his right hand. It was not a question, more of a statement of fact.

Harry shook his head slowly, not making any sudden movements.

"I'd be lying if I said I knew exactly why, but I can probably have a guess from years of experience. To kill me, right?" he replied. "Of course, this assumes I'm accepting that you're back from the dead, which seems to be happing as a regular occurrence these days."

Grindelwald nodded with a slight, mocking smile, and Crouch Jr. laughed an ugly laugh next to him.

"My Master is driven to eradicate my enemies," Crouch Jr. spat. Harry winced, still staring down Grindelwald. The situation was almost painfully tense.

"There are eleven of us still standing, and two of you," Harry replied slowly, trying to sound as reasonable as possible. "Dumbledore may be... incapacitated for now, but frankly I'm unsure even the great Grindelwald – if that is indeed who you are – can manage those odds."

Grindelwald smirked, before nodding almost imperceptibly to Crouch, who whispered a spell. The Aurors still standing, along with Sirius, Crouch, Scrimgeour and one of the Unspeakables, immediately blanched and dropped to their knees, expressions of extreme pain on their faces before they keeled over face first. Harry almost gasped in shock – were they dead?

"Only unconscious, unfortunately," commented Grindelwald, as though absolutely nothing had occurred. "They really should have checked the food in the kitchens more thoroughly – and I was very pleased to see that the food Bartemius poisoned was a popular choice." His manner of speech was very cultured and polite, similar to how Voldemort was, but Harry could read an underlying tone of malice like the back of his hand. This was the kind of man who could smile and compliment your choice of dress robes as he casually stabbed you in the stomach.

"_Who is this_?" Harry heard the remaining Unspeakable whisper to Amelia Bones, who was still administering to Dumbledore on the floor behind the table. She whispered something back Harry couldn't hear – they were probably discussing who he himself was – to them he was some random civil servant. Inside his heart was hammering – what if Sirius was dead? – but on the outside he tried to betray nothing.

"So, how would you like to do this?" Harry replied calmly, shifting his stance slightly to secure his balance, and moving his arm slightly to loosen his wand which was hidden up his sleeve. "Sorry if it's not what you want to hear, but you aren't the first Dark Lord I've fought."

Whispers broke out behind him as Amelia Bones and the Unspeakable tried to work out what was going on.

"Mrs Bones, get them out of here," he said loudly, not taking his eyes off of Grindelwald, blocking out the tables of half eaten food and candles around him. Amelia Bones looked like she was about to protest, but with a hissed set of commands from the Unspeakable, there was the _whoosh_ of mass Portkey activation – everyone carried them nowadays after their importance in the Second Uprising – and the other unconscious guests were whisked away, leaving just Harry and the Unspeakable. He prayed inwardly to anyone listening that Sirius and Dumbledore, at least, were all right – not to mention Scrimgeour.

"Going to sacrifice someone else?" Crouch asked, nodding at the Unspeakable, who had walked up around the table to stand next to Harry. Harry glanced sidelong at him – he had cropped brown hair and looked competent, if a bit young. It was hard to ignore that the wand he held by his side was shaking slightly – he had probably been put off by his partner seemingly nearly dying from poisoning.

Harry ignored Crouch's barb, and readied himself. The tension in the air was electric; everyone was on edge.

"I will enjoy this," Grindelwald said simply.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath, before moving his arm enough to have his wand drop into his hand. In the next second he opened his eyes, raised his wand, and howled a spell.

A bright silver flash of light erupted out of the end of his wand, and the duel was on.


	8. Chapter 7

**What's to say? Merry Christmas, Read and Review! It'd make my Christmas!**

"_One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate; but he must die as a man."_

**Chapter Seven – This Isn't My First Time**

"_I will enjoy this," Grindelwald said simply. _

_ Harry closed his eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath, before moving his arm enough to have his wand drop into his hand. In the next second he opened his eyes, raised his wand, and howled a spell._

_ A bright silver flash of light erupted out of the end of his wand, and the duel was on._

XxXx

Grindelwald barely raised his wand, firing precisely the same spell Harry had cast right back at him – a silver curse designed to turn ribs to dust. The spells collided in mid air scant feet from the four men, with Grindelwald's effortlessly blowing Harry's into sparks and rocketing forward to hit the surprised Boy-Who-Lived in the chest.

Harry grunted in pain, flying backwards over a table, sending various desserts and cutlery flying in all directions. He landed hard on his side, thankful for the weak shield he had managed to raise to block the worst of Grindelwald's spell – the curse had still hit like a tank, however. He rolled to the side to avoid a follow-up curse which bisected the table he had fallen over, and scrambled to his feet, Banishing a chair in Grindelwald's direction – the Dark Lord merely batted it aside with an open hand.

Crouch Jr. and the Unspeakable, meanwhile, had begun a less flashy but no less deadly duel – they were sending spells at each other, moving towards the other side of the room. The Unspeakable was no master duellist, but he seemed to be able to hold his own nicely.

"_Hurespex!"_ Harry spat, whipping his wand to the left, and then to the right, before thrusting forward and sending a torrent of acidic globules forward in a deadly spray towards the Germanic Dark Lord; Grindelwald smiled a lazy smile and waved a hand to bat the acid aside, before casually disintegrating a pair of chairs Harry had Banished at him. He replied with a pair of powerful spells which Harry blocked with relative ease – he was, however, detecting that he was horribly outclassed.

He had stood up to Voldemort, and killed him in the storm-lashed grounds of Hogwarts, essentially with his bare hands. But that nasty little voice at the back of his mind - whispering insidiously as he deflected a trio of curses and replied with one of his own, diving over another food-laden table - was reminding him that he had probably only managed that because he was undead and so had massive advantages over his opponent who had also endured a duel with Dumbledore himself that fateful night.

"This is unimpressive," Grindelwald deadpanned as he blocked more of Harry's spellfire with a thick bottle-green shield. "I was lead to believe you had defeated Lord Voldemort in single combat. He must have been a mediocre wizard, at best."

Crouch and the Unspeakable had moved into their own half of the dining hall, most of the tables in their area blown apart or to the side of the room. It was unclear who had the upper hand – Crouch was firing more spells, but had been nicked and cut in more places than the Unspeakable.

"Sorry if I'm not impressing you," Harry shot back, firing off a Pulverising curse, before lashing out with a whip of flame which caused Grindelwald to step back slightly – one of the few movements he had done in the short duel. "But I'm somewhat out of practice and Polyjuice tends to throw me off a bit."

Grindelwald raised an eyebrow, before thrusting his long wand forward and shouting an incantation, causing ten nearby broken and battered tables to shudder, before launching towards Harry all at once. The Boy-Who-Lived merely crouched, before whispering a spell which coated his body in a silvery shield, rendering him impervious from harm as the various dining tables smote themselves upon his body, sending debris everywhere.

Harry then cancelled the spell, thrusting forward with a spell-chain; the last syllable of one spell flowing into the other. A quick barrage of nearly a dozen curses was hurled at Grindelwald in less than ten seconds, causing the man to pause slightly before hissing a complex countercurse, and forcing him to dodge to the side out of the way. Several of the colourful spells which had been knocked aside by the duellists had blown holes in the walls, and some of the portraits were now smouldering or outright burning, filling the high ceiling with black smoke.

"_Harus, Yaskrey, Tulindis_!" Harry continued, his wand flowing in ever more complex movements as he fired a crescent shaped arc of energy, followed by a series of small darts of light, followed again by a heavyset ball of lead which rocketed forward at almost the speed of sound. Grindelwald managed to bring up a shield which looked akin to a sheet of translucent blue glass, which absorbed the spells but was battered aside by the cannonball, which caught him in the gut and broke the quickly-conjured green shield he had managed to cast. For the first time he looked fazed – his eyes bulged and he staggered back, his free hand holding his stomach. The ball of lead should have, by all rights, probably bisected him, but this Dark Lord was made of stronger stuff.

Grindelwald replied with a scorching beam of blue electrical energy from his wand, which Harry _grabbed_, muttering a spell to protect his hand with a golden sheen, and yanked hard like a rope, knocking the Dark Lord off balance and causing him to burn his cream robes with the rope of electricity. The man was quick, however, and cancelled the spell, sending Harry stumbling.

Harry swore in anger, throwing himself over a broken chair as Grindelwald sent back some orange counterspells, and yelped in surprise as a vermillion spell from the duel between Crouch and the Unspeakable hissed past his face, almost scorching his flesh as he scrambled to his feet to turn back and face Grindelwald. All he saw, to his surprise, was a black-gloved fist come crashing down towards his nose, before there was a sickening _crunch_ and Harry was sent staggering back, slipping on an abandoned plate of trifle and sent unceremoniously onto his arse – a fact which saved his life as a green Killing Curse rocketed forward where his head had been seconds ago.

Grindelwald, wasting no time, sent a second Killing Curse to where Harry was lying on his back, holding himself up on one food-stained elbow and trying to see through the pain of what was possibly a broken nose. The time-traveller managed to hurl himself aside, the Curse blowing a not-inconsiderable sized hole in the carpet, and roll to his feet, whispering a healing charm to relieve the pain in his nose. He parried another curse which would have taken his head off, and managed to reply with one of his own – Grindelwald was just too fast, however.

Holding his wand in both hands, the Germanic duellist pointed it at Harry's head, before spitting a spell in German. An invisible wind whipped up, bodily picking Harry up as though using a massive hand of air, and hurling him across the wrecked and burning dining hall to land, extremely hard, in a pile of debris from the duel between Crouch and the Unspeakable. With another contemptuous wave of his wand, Grindelwald launched a further three tables, food and cutlery along with them, to slam into the Boy-Who-Lived, burying him in a pile of wood and mess, with the fires on the wall tapestries and paintings creeping closer to the wooden mound.

With a decidedly wicked smile, he stroked his beard and turned to observe the battle between Crouch and the Unspeakable, which was going decidedly in Crouch Jr.'s favour.

XxXx

"Why the _fuck _can't we get into the fucking house, Wethers? Are you honestly _taking the piss_?" Robards half shouted at the thin bespectacled pencil-pusher who was standing in front of him. As soon as Grindelwald had begun to duel Harry he had activated a spell Crouch Jr. had laid when they had entered the property, which had reversed the Arithmancy in the wards, unceremoniously ejecting everyone in the place and protecting the house from their re-entry.

"I honestly can't say, sir, whoever attacked the Minister and poisoned him did something to the wards. They're reading us as the enemy." Wethers replied, looking concerned at his superior's outburst.

Robards let out a wordless growl of anger, his temper getting the better of him as he viciously kicked a daisy and turned on his heel to stride across the lawn to where the majority of the guests who hadn't already fled were gathered. Dumbledore was standing unsteadily at the head of the group, talking to some of the Aurors – everyone injured and a great majority of people who had collapsed simultaneously from some sort of magically-activated poison had been taken to St. Mungos. The entire situation, barely ten minutes old, was a mess. Robards took several deep breaths as he approached them, calming himself down. It wouldn't do to look out of control in front of everyone.

Night had fallen on the mansion and its modest grounds, and it was getting a bit chilly, it not quite being summer yet. The dining hall was in the heart of the house, but the crashes and bangs of some sort of duel occurring within were clearly audible.

Bones had said something about a Lancaster fellow engaging the person who had tried to kill the Minister – people claimed it was Grindelwald, but Robards was too wise to fall for that – clearly someone using a glamour. A common trick. Most people had come to the conclusion it was a simple assassination rather than a Dark Lord risen from the dead.

The Aurors who had been ejected from the premises signalled to Robards from where they were talking to Dumbledore – they were ready to try rebreaching the wards.

"Headmaster Dumbledore," Robards said as he approached the venerable Headmaster, ignoring the whispers and gossip of the various remaining guests who were standing on the dewy lawn, "They said this Lancaster was trying to engage the assassin. What do you know of him?"

Dumbledore looked wearied – he had apparently been laid out by a spell to the gut, but seemed to be able to hold himself well enough. Robards was mildly struck by how _old_ he looked – as any student of Hogwarts could attest, Dumbledore was basically ageless and mystical. It was a bit of a crisis of faith to have that illusion shattered.

"I feel," the Headmaster replied vaguely, "that master Lancaster can hold himself well enough against whoever is inside that house." He blinked in surprise as a massive crash echoed from within the house. "I feel that it is probably not Gellert, but someone wearing his visage. I feel I can attest that it is certainly _not_ Gellert, in fact," he said firmly, and Robards nodded. Dumbledore, of all people, would know. He looked away, missing the look of concern in Dumbledore's eyes, and addressed the Aurors.

"We know the attacker is still in there, fighting an Unspeakable and this Lancaster fellow. We know they can't escape – only Portkeys work and they'll redirect to the enlarged shed over there," he gestured to where everyone had ended up, a small nondescript wooden shed internally enlarged to the size of a large Quidditch pitch. "This is the Minister's party, and we've all cocked this one up."

Dumbledore coughed gently behind him, as though in quiet agreement, but the Headmaster looked the school of innocence when Robards shot him a look.

Without further ado, the Aurors stormed in formation up the lawn towards the front of the house, and began to cast chains of ward breaking and disabling spells in concert. To the assembled crowds it was a brilliant display of deft and colourful spellwork – to Dumbledore it was a clear exercise in futility. Whoever had tried to kill the Minister – it couldn't possibly be Gellert, he thought to himself, as he tried to stamp down the logic in his mind which was trying to join the dots of his missing journals and the kidnapped children – had done a superb job in reversing the well-prepared and strengthened wards.

He just hoped Harry would be able to hold out inside.

XxXx

"You're a bit... shit at this whole hero thing recently, Harry,"

Harry groaned, rolling over and spitting out blood and what he seriously suspected was his right canine and one of his front teeth. He'd bitten his tongue, and it felt raw and sore in his mouth. The rest of his body was an orchestra of various pains, and he reckoned his ankle was broken. Even more disconcertingly, he tried to lie flat on the ground and found something propping him up – something which hurt like being kicked in the balls by Hagrid.

He opened his eyes, looking down at his body. A huge splinter of wood was wedged under his ribs, his left hand was a broken _claw_, and he was absolutely covered in blood. The Polyjuice seemed to have worn off.

With an internal sigh he noticed he was back in the white vista he often inhabited when his fractured mind had sustained serious trauma, such as being hurled into a wall at forty miles an hour by an angry German, and then having several items of furniture broken on his head.

He tried to speak, but only coughed up more blood and phlegm, splattering it down his chin.

"Not good, mate," he heard Ron say from somewhere behind him, and he slowly turned his head, hissing in pain. Ron was sitting, leaning back on a chair, smoking a cigarette and looking nonchalant as he scratched one of his facial scars and the stubble on his chin. He took a drag.

"Healing spe-" he faltered, and Harry's vision went dark for a moment, before everything reappeared, Ron now crouching next to him and looking very concerned, his face very close to Harry's.

"Wake up. Healing spells. That splinter is in your fucking lung, Harry. Healing spel-" Harry's vision darkened again, for slightly longer. The whiteness flickered back, and he saw the briefest instant of Ron's booted foot descending on his face.

XxXx

Ivan Edmunds was in serious, serious trouble.

More trouble than he'd ever been in in his life, and that was saying something for an Unspeakable studying the Veil.

He was staring down the end of two wands, both held by people he never thought he'd ever meet, let alone be brutally tortured and killed by. His own wand was clutched in the grasp of a triumphant looking Barty Crouch Jr., whom Ivan had only ever seen in newspaper clippings about the Longbottoms.

The other was some freak pretending to be Grindelwald. He'd fought that stranger, Lancaster, who had put up a good fight, but had launched him to the other side of the room and probably killed him. Grindelwald was currently twirling Lancaster's wand in his free hand.

"So." Crouch said, licking his lips. "We need someone to deliver a message."

Grindelwald shook his head, motioning with the stolen wand for Crouch to be quiet. The German observed the rather terrified looking Unspeakable with inscrutable blue eyes.

"Are you afraid of me?" he asked, quietly.

Ivan shook his head, inside trying desperately not to shake with fear. He was not a bad duellist, and he'd messed up Crouch's flank with a decent cutting curse, but he was no Auror. He hadn't even been there when the Ministry had been attacked.

"Liar," Grindelwald said quietly, flicking his wand absently and shattering Ivan's knee. The Unspeakable's mind filled with red hot pain as he howled in agony, falling onto the injured knee and nearly passing out from the resulting shock. Whimpering, he knelt on his good knee and looked up at the two men, his vision blurred with tears.

He hadn't expected to die like this, in his finest dress robes at the Minister of Magic's birthday party. Then again, he hadn't expected to meet two men supposed to dead, either.

He looked down at the floor, unable to meet Grindelwald's mocking gaze, and waited for the inevitable.

XxXx

Harry coughed, spluttered, and brought up blood, clogging his throat and causing him to panic and spasm under the pitch-black debris he was pinned down by. He flailed, causing a spike of pain from his broken left hand, and scrabbled at his throat with his free right hand, desperately thinking a medical spell to try to unclog his airways. After a beat, the spell took hold, forcing the congealed mass of blood, some teeth and phlegm to shoot out of his mouth and splatter over his face, which was wedged against some wood at an uncomfortable angle.

Messy, but he could vaguely breathe. One breath, two breaths. He then realised he was getting basically no oxygen, as one of his lungs had a massive spike of wood wedged into it, which was depriving oxygen to his brain and causing him to make lethally detached observations like the one he currently was making, rather than doing anything about it.

A second, barely held together, spell, and the wood painfully shot out of his body, causing him to sob in pain and tears to leak from his eyes, which were stinging from dust. _It hurt a lot._

A third spell repaired the lung – a makeshift remedy, but one which had served him in battle before, back in the previous timeline.

Now he could think slightly more clearly, albeit still in extreme pain and with a feeling like he was drunk. He was trapped under the remains of several heavy tables and chairs, although thankfully he was in no _immediate_ danger of dying from his injuries – just from the Dark Lord standing probably not too far away. He didn't have his wand, and his left hand was broken, not to mention several ribs and probably his ankle.

He categorised his injuries, then seriously considered just passing out and hoping Dumbledore came to the rescue.

This sounded like a good idea, in all honesty. He could just sleep for a bit.

A horrible crack and an anguished howl of pain filtered through the wood which was on top of him and into Harry's ears. The cry of an Unspeakable who had fought by his side.

"Go on, mate," he heard Ron whisper in his ear.

"Ah, for fucks sake," Harry whispered to no one in particular through ruined lips, feeling anger bubble up from his battered stomach, filling his extremities with energy and vigour, summoning his magic around him until it heated up his beaten body and made him feel like he'd just snorted Pepper-Up potion. He ignored the pain in his left hand, ignored the pain from his ankle, ignored the pain coursing through his body with every breath.

Harry Potter _inhaled_.

XxXx

"Pathetic," Grindelwald spat, aiming his wand at the crown of the whimpering Unspeakable. "Albus always favoured the _weak_."

He opened his mouth, beginning to form the first syllable of the Killing Curse, before a piece of table slammed into his back, sending him staggering, but not quite knocking him over. He cursed in German and turned, leaving Crouch to keep an eye on the Unspeakable, who had fallen onto all fours and looked close to passing out from the pain from his shattered knee.

Harry Potter, Polyjuice removed, was standing amid the debris, his hands outstretched and magical fire coating his body, scorching and burning the wooden remains of the tables. Fire was now burning merrily around the dining hall, turning the air slightly grey with the smoke, and the ceiling was essentially invisible with the amount of smog which had collected.

As Grindelwald watched, Harry reset all the bones in his left hand, clicked his ankle back into place, and pushed a rib which had poked through the skin back into his slot, wincing with pain. He still looked a godawful mess – his robes were ruined, and his hair was matted with blood, not to mention his face. He was missing a few teeth, his lips were smashed and raw, and he had a cut down his left cheek. His scar stood out clear against his dusty face. He looked dangerously calm.

"Sorry about that," Harry said hoarsely, clicking the fingers in his recently-repaired hand, causing his robes to transfigure into flawless white, and a black featureless mask to appear in his empty right hand, which was encased in red fire. "I'm a bit... out of practice."

He placed the mask on his face with a flourish, and raised his hands. "You seem to have my wand, so I'll have to do this a bit differently."

"Now _that_ is what I have heard stories of," Grindelwald said with gleaming eyes and a small smile on his face. "Impress me."

Harry snarled, and thrust both his hands forward, azure bolts of energy lashing out of them, only to be deflected into the walls by Grindelwald. The Boy-Who-Lived immediately followed up with a click of his burning fingers, summoning a ball of green fire which he hurled like a cricket ball at the Dark Lord, while simultaneously summoning a silver dagger into his left hand and throwing that as well. Not letting up, he then dived to the side out of the smouldering table fragments he was standing in and fired two more darts of light at Grindelwald, the magical aura turning him into a crimson blur.

As Grindelwald replied with a summoned whirlwind of fire, Harry couldn't help but think Dumbledore couldn't get there fast enough.

XxXx

"Sir, fire," an Auror said, pointing to one of the upstairs windows. Robards looked up, seeing ugly black smoke coming from a window which was connected to a room above the dining hall, where the duels were occurring.

"How close are we to breaking in?" he asked, looking along his line of Aurors, who were all slowly dismantling the complex ward net which had been placed over the mansion by the Ministry itself. Bright flashes of lights and sounds of varying volume echoed across the lawn – there were still a good group of bystanders, although no one new had joined in the few minutes they had been trying – the Ministry had been alerted, but with the Minister evacuated to St. Mungos (still no news of the poisoned peoples' condition) there was no immediate cause for alarm – after all, Dumbledore and a few dozen Aurors were already there.

"We're making headway, sir," another Auror chimed in – a young woman who was currently biting her lip as she flicked her wand at a window, casting golden sparks at it and causing steam to gush from her wand. "Problem is, the Arithmancy is totally turned against us – none of the back doors we put into the spellwork are working. Whoever did this has serious power."

Dumbledore, standing behind the Aurors and examining the wards with a spell, frowned. He was having second thoughts about his hope that this was a man wearing Grindelwald's face – coming to any sort of solid conclusion at a time like this was difficult, however. He scrutinised the glowing ball of multicoloured light in his hand, muttering under his breath at some calculations most couldn't fathom.

"I feel I have determined a course of action," the Headmaster announced, his eyes twinkling briefly at the looks of visible relief on the faces of the Aurors and Robards – if Dumbledore had an idea, then their job was probably about to get a lot easier. Two Aurors currently casting spells at the main front door stood aside, letting the Headmaster through. Dumbledore paused, very gingerly laying a hand on the wooden doors, before beginning to mutter a spell.

Robards gritted his teeth, ordering the Aurors to redouble their efforts to help Dumbledore, and some others to go and control the crowd of guests, who were growing restless at the growing smoke issuing from the windows.

It was going to be close.

XxXx

Wandless magic.

Harry liked to flatter himself that he was pretty damn good at wandless magic. He certainly had been better than Ron when they had fought for their lives for five horrible years, and he had kept his hand in, as it were, during his stint as the Phoenix. He could do a lot of spells wandlessly as effectively as with a wand, but most of the Unforgivables and high class destructive spellwork was tricky, if not impossible.

Ordinarily having to fight without a wand would, therefore, not be a problem. Of course, 'ordinarily', Harry would _not_ be manifesting magical fire, fighting in a room which was _on_ fire and trying to avoid being _set_ on fire by a crazed reborn German Dark Lord who could probably have killed Voldemort. And all this having had the stuffing knocked out of him by the aforementioned Dark Lord just minutes before. And the Dark Lord had two wands, one of which was Harry's own.

That said, they didn't call him the Boy-Who-Lived for nothing.

XxXx

"_Argentum Telum!" _Harry shouted, shooting a silver arrow out of his palm while flicking his other hand to raise up a jagged spar of broken table to intercept Grindelwald's incoming orange curse. He coughed, wandlessly casting a charm to clear his airways and vision of the now-thick grey smoke which had filled the burning dining hall. Flames coated the walls and many bits of furniture were now freely burning; the temperature was reaching intolerable levels.

The blue bands on the doors were still present, however, making escape currently impossible. Crouch had Portkeyed away on Grindelwald's order when Harry had reappeared, using some sort of spell to bypass the wards, leaving the now-unconscious Unspeakable lying face down, dangerously close to the fires which were consuming the building.

Grindelwald spat a spell, touching the tips of both wands in his hands together, sending a molten beam of sickly red light which thundered forward towards a surprised Harry – he was unaware of spells involving two wands. The Boy-Who-Lived crossed his arms over his chest, before flinging them out in a star shape, conjuring a sphere of frigid clear liquid around himself which instantly turned to steam as the beam touched it. Harry yelled with the effort of maintaining the water barrier, before finally cancelling the spell and hurling himself to one side, knocking himself against a broken chair and hitting his head painfully on the floor.

He rolled again, hissing in pain as his foot went into a bit of fire, to avoid two more piercing curses from Grindelwald, before forcing himself to his feet, his mask slipping off his face to reveal a bloodied and grim face.

He pointed his aura-wreathed hands out, fingers spread and pointing at Grindelwald, and almost _sang_ a spell, an intricate string of five words which caused the tips of his hands to glow with silver light, before a spray of infinitesimally small pellets of light shot out of all eight fingers, flying towards the Dark Lord in a thick cloud of dazzling magic. Grindelwald frowned, conjuring up a translucent azure sphere as a shield with both wands, before wincing in pain as the silver motes shredded it with ease and scored thousands of tiny cuts in the flesh of his face and chest. He swore in German, and Harry pressed his advantage.

Stepping over an abandoned apple pie, he clapped his hands, unleashing a wave of sonic energy which dazed Grindelwald slightly, before the German shook it off and replied with a wicked pair of Killing curses from his wands. Harry sidestepped them both nimbly, replying with a double handed Blasting curse, which thundered forward, distorting the air as it went. Grindelwald effortlessly parried the spell, only to have to hurriedly duck to avoid a second one. Harry had nearly closed the gap between the two, magical fire still playing over his body, albeit weaker – the effect empowered his spells but was hard to maintain.

"This better?" he questioned, running his tongue over the gaps where some of his teeth used to be as he used both hands to catch and crush a ball of electricity Grindelwald had fired at his approaching enemy. The battle was getting more ferocious as Harry got within scant feet of his enemy – a blur of wandwork and deft hands pushing, grabbing and flicking spells away – it was as though they were connected by a multicoloured rope of light. All around them the room began to crumble and give way, bits of the ceiling falling on fire to smash into the smouldering carpet. Thick smoke choked the ceiling and escaped through holes to the other floors, and the temperature was causing both combatants to sweat profusely.

Grindelwald spat something in German before throwing both of the wands aside and launching himself forward to close the final gap, bringing a fist up to Harry's jaw. Harry was quick and blocked the strike, but soon instantly regretted his overconfidence in besting Grindelwald in hand to hand combat – he was clearly better than Voldemort had been. Within seconds Harry was seeing stars as the Dark Lord kneed him in the thigh and struck him open handed in the temple, before driving his fingers into the Boy-Who-Lived's throat; the shock of the impact dissipated Harry's magical aura and caused him to stagger back, gagging.

Grindelwald pressed the advantage, delivering two swift strikes to Harry's jaw, before punching him in the chest with a magically-assisted strike, sending Harry sprawling backwards onto a burning table, with an ominous _crack_ of ribs. The Boy-Who-Lived howled in pain, rolling off of the scorching wood, and struggled to breathe as Grindelwald summoned his own wand back into his hand, levelling it at Harry, who was prone.

"Not particularly impressed," the Dark Lord sneered, his accent becoming thicker from the exertion of the duel. He opened his mouth to verbalise a spell, before suddenly his eyes widened and he swore viciously in German, his limbs seemingly seized by some unknown force. Shouting a curse he tried to fire off a spell at Harry – a nasty spell which would constrict his heart until it ruptured – but missed, the blood-red bolt of magic striking wide. With one last hate-filled look at Harry, Grindelwald was seized by the magic of the wards and forcibly Apparated out of the room, whereupon he would almost certainly Apparate out of the holding area, or use a Portkey to safety.

Harry rolled onto his back, finding himself lying next to the unknown Unspeakable, who was pale and breathing only intermittently. He snapped his fingers weakly, summoning his wand to himself, and tried to ignore the now intolerable heat which battered his senses. Weakly casting a flame-retardant spell on himself and the Unspeakable, he felt his chest, wincing at the fact it was now slightly concave, and there was a _lot_ of blood on his white robes – it seemed a rib had pierced his skin, and the magical spell on his lung was beginning to fail under the stress.

There was a lot of pain.

It hit Harry like a sledgehammer to the forehead, as the last of the magical energy he had been forcing through his body faded, and everything returned to how it should be.

"Hold on, mate," he heard Ron whisper in his ear, as Harry Potter faded into unconsciousness in the burning wreck of the dining room.


End file.
